Next time you’re out for a walk in Springfield, Pa. check the storm sewer drains. The small, round faded “no dumping, drains to the creek” signs have been replaced by bright, sharp new ones featuring cartoons of smiling fish and frogs.
The Black Holocaust
Economist and Philadelphia native Walter Williams has estimated that 262,621 blacks were murdered by other blacks between 1976 and 2011.
He notes that about 7,000 blacks are murdered annually — this means that more than 50 percent of murder victims are black with blacks making up just 13 percent of the population. He points out that 94 percent of the time the killers are other blacks.
In comparison, Williams says that between the years 1882 and 1968, 3,446 blacks were lynched at the hands of whites and that black war casualties from the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and all wars since 1980 (8,197) come to 18,515.
Employment Bill Passes House Committee
The House Labor and Industry Committee, May 21, approved a bill designed to get unemployed Pennsylvanians back in the workforce, says State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)
House Bill 1539 would establish the Keystone Works Program to match unemployed individuals with employers interested in filling open positions within their organizations.
Under the bill, an employer must be able to provide the claimant with a maximum of 24 hours of unpaid training weekly for a maximum of eight weeks.
Eligible claimants are those who are collecting regular unemployment compensation benefits, which they will continue to do during the training period.
At the end of the eight-week period, the employer must consider the claimant for the job opening but is not required to hire him or her. Similarly, claimants would not be required to accept an offer of employment.
The Department of Labor and Industry will determine whether the job being offered by the business is acceptable for the program and whether the claimant is an acceptable match for the job.
The bill now awaits consideration by the full House.
Let’s Not Get Too Political As They Divide and Conquer
It is summer again. A struggle is taking place between those who want so support the downtrodden and help uplift the whole society, and those who want to grab everything for themselves and people who are like them while destroying all others. I think that this has been the primary battle on Earth since the beginning of the age of the human being. There have been forces that wanted to bless people and make those who were blessed be a blessing to everyone in which they came in contact vs. those who thought they were blessed because of their own superiority and who learned to despise those who God was said to love and want blessed, the downtrodden and the pure of heart.
The same old battle is fought again and again at the end of each
age and the beginning of the new. Humanity strives to jump to a new
state of creativity and awareness while other forces filled with
fear, greed, and lack of insight and vision, continually try to push
back toward the dark ages full of fear, discrimination, and created
scarcity so they may maintain their seats of power.
The main difference today is that we can see how scarcity is
created right before our eyes. We see how a few people working
behind the scenes can buy the rights of the many through bribery and
media manipulation. We couldn’t see that a long time ago. Because
of more information we can look at the major religions and see how
they played a part in perpetuating the myths that led to fear of the
other and constant wars in the name of God and country. It is as if
the sheet has been pulled back and we see all of the ugly people
conspiring behind the scenes to build empires for themselves
regardless what happens to the majority of the people in their
communities, countries, or even in the world.
This is a good thing. Now is the time for us to look at the place
from whence evil comes. It is time for us to sketch it into our
minds with hot irons, or chisel it into our psyches like truth
written in stone so that we can heal all of the separation that has
been created by these people and their spiritual ancestors, and begin
to rebuild the world the way most of us prefer. The racism, the
sexism, the religious bigotry, and homophobia has to go. These are
the tools they use to conquer us. It is time to realize that we
are part of an interdependent system. We are part of one world. We
are not separate. Poverty and oppression in one part of the world
translate to the same things in the other parts.
This is something we are recognizing today through this so called
war on terror. The major chance that we have to make this world
better is to get rid of the hate, nullify the effects of the haters
and Empire builders so that we can have life. When we can do this,
live in a multicultural world where we can enjoy others cultures and
share our own freely, we will create the Rule of Love, The Kingdom of
Heaven, Satchitananda, or even, as the far right conservatives say, all boats rise on the economic tide, on this Earth.
We will be what we were born as, a wonderful creative beings who are kind, loving, and capable of creating the world that most of us dream. A world of peace, a world of joy, a world of mutual sharing, in other words, a world of love.
It just takes letting go of the false identity that has been force
fed to us since the day we were born, and remembering who we really are. We are beings connected in an interdependent web of existence.
More than that, we are the guardians of that independent web. This is only if we decide to be that, though. We have just forgotten who, and what, we really are and it is time to remember before global warming and WWIII..
Om Prakash is a Writer, Life-Coach, and Leader of Spirituality
Workshops. He is available for lectures and workshops on various
areas of practical spirituality. He is also the host of the talk show The Spiritual Warrior: Reclaiming your power at:
www.blogtalkradio.com/practical-spirituality.
For more info. visit www.nextstepcoaching.4t.com
Let’s Not Get Too Political As They Divide and Conquer
‘SWATting” As Political Terror
Almost two years ago — June 2, 2010 — a family on Cascade Road in Springfield, Pa. suffered a night of terror when a murder/hostage situation was reported to be occurring at their home via a 911 call.
A SWAT team was called and a helicopter, guns were drawn, and the father of the house was handcuffed and wrestled to the ground. Instead of the home being a crime scene, however, it turned out that the families were victims of one big prank done by hacking the emergency dispatch system.
The practice of using the 911 system to send law enforcement on false and potentially dangerous alarms is called “swatting” and it is now being practiced for political reasons.
On May 26, sheriff’s deputies were sent to the Georgia home of Erick Erickson, the editor-in-chief of the conservative website RedState.com. to investigate a false report that he had shot his wife.
Erickson had been writing about a swatting incident perpetrated on conservative blogger Patrick Frey aka Patterico, a California Deputy District Attorney, who was handcuffed following a 911 call reporting that he had shot his wife.
Frey had been writing about Brett Kimberlin, who is now Democrat political activist after serving 17 years of a 51 year sentence as the Indiana Speedway Bomber.
Another political victim of swatting is Mike Stack, the New Jersey resident who helped bring down New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams notes that the practice could easily be ended by a Justice Department led by an attorney general so inclined.
When You’re Holding A Hammer
This video is flying around the web.
Reportedly one of the writers lost his job as a high school football coach because of it.
Hopefully, it leads to fame and fortune for them because it is very good.
Hat tip Fran Coppock.
Starnesville a.k.a. Detroit
Will the last one to leave Detroit please turn off the lights. Maybe it’s not a joke. Mayor and one-time NBA star Dave Bing, whose basketball card I think I still have somewhere, is proposing to turn off half the street lights leaving huge swaths of that depopulated urban wasteland in the dark.
It sounds like a setting for a Snake Plissken movie or an apocalyptic video game. Call it Fallout 2012: Detroit.
The city which once built the world’s cars and had a population of 1,849,568 in 1950 is down to 713,777, most of whom are on some kind of government assistance. It is the only American city to fall below 1 million in population after reaching that benchmark.
Actually, more apt than Snake Plissken is Ayn Rand whose book Atlas Shrugged featured a place called Starnesville, a Wisconsin city that was once a thriving, modern automotive center and that had devolved to a pre-industrial state.
Yes, Detroit can be called Starnesville.
Here is the solution: break off the sections that Bing wants to abandon and incorporate them as boroughs of three square miles unencumbered by the city’s existing union contracts and liabilities. Let the residents elect their own sheriffs for law enforcement, organize volunteer fire and ambulance companies for emergency services and handle education through a straight state-funded voucher system of $5,000 per child.
Things can’t get worse there hence is a perfect opportunity for some experimentation.
For a lark name one of the borough’s Starnesville.
Starnesville a.k.a. Detroit
House Votes To Give Raise To Pa. Guard
Recognizing the sacrifices of Pennsylvania National Guard members,
The State House on May 22 voted 198-0 to pass HB 2168, which would increase the minimum state active duty pay from $75 per day to $100 per day for Pennsylvania National Guard members.
Prime sponsor is Nicholas A Miccarelli (R-162) whose district lies in southeastern Delaware County.
It would be the first increase in minimum active duty pay in more than 15 years and would affect how guard members are compensated for responding to state emergencies.
The bill is awaiting action in the Senate.
Hat tip State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)
A Day For Remembering
Today is Memorial Day which began as as Decoration Day to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War.
In the 20th century it was extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars.
And that is something that we must never shirk from doing.
A Memorial Day tribute:
Fish For Free Today
Today, May 28, is Fish For Free Day in Pennsylvania. Anyone – resident or non-resident – to legally fish in the Commonwealth’s waterways without a fishing license.
A second Fish for Free Day will be held in conjunction with the Labor Day holiday on Monday, Sept. 3
Hat tip State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)