Saturday, January 5, 2013

Winston-Salem Journal LTE SA 01/05/13


Precious children
In this glorious season we have just celebrated the birth of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, and his gift and promise of eternal salvation to all who would believe in him.
President Obama spoke of the precious lives of our children when he addressed the country after those tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut: “…we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child … that we’re all parents, that they are all our children. This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.”
There have been over 57 million Americans aborted in the 40 years since Roe v. Wade became law. That is two generations of baby boys and baby girls who have had their lives torn from them, who never drew a first breath, or saw the faces of their mothers, who never would go to kindergarten, or go on a date, graduate, get married, have families of their own.
We wonder how we have politicians who lie to us, and usurp powers as they steal our freedoms. It is because we have not stood firm on our God-given rights in our founding documents. Today it seems life is expendable if it is a punishment or an annoyance. “ Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?”
STEPHANIE EMERY
Clemmons
A happy medium
The recent event in Connecticut has left the entire nation reeling. My thanks to the president for his heart-felt comments during his visit. As the parent of two young daughters, I know he was as appalled with this tragedy as the rest of us were.
A golf pro I respect always tells me after a bad shot that "it is not the fault of the club but poor play on the part of the golfer." I feel as do many that we need further legislation to control the sale of assault-type weapons and expanded clips for ammunition. I also feel that we need early detection and protection from people whose actions and words frighten their family, friends and co-workers. In many of the instances we have seen in recent years the trigger-puller had been brought to the attention of psychologists, police and social workers. In many of these same cases, little was done for fear of violating his rights.
The Wall Street Journal reports that "A Hartford judge … has been arguing for a bill … that would give the state the authority to forcibly medicate and stabilize people with severe mental disabilities like schizophrenia for up to 120 days." (“Hard Newtown Questions,” Dec. 26).” Naturally this bill has been blocked by, I am sure, well-meaning legislators who cringe at infringing on the rights of the mentally unstable. There has to be some happy medium that protects us from both the weapons and the insane who wield them.
TOM D. JONES
Winston-Salem
Taxpayers’ fault
Well, it's finally over. I ran out of popcorn watching the mini-series “Fiscal Cliff.”
All the big corporations will run amuck now, using billions of dollars they have kept off the stock market while hoping to get corporate tax cuts that the middle class can pay. Prices will start going up on almost everything soon.
We, the middle class, are expected to keep paying too much for goods, even more now to pay for corporate tax increases on their income of $450,000 or more. Well, whose fault is all of this? Could it be the taxpayers’? Why haven't we demanded more from our Democratic representatives? Why don't their phones stay busy 24 hours a day?
I guess the answer I hear most is: "We can't do anything about it." That's what our representatives want us to think. Why haven't we called our representatives and demanded a complete federal tax write-off of all medical expenses instead of 8 percent of line ...so and so?
The number-one killer of the middle classis is health-insurance costs and medical bills. Banks don't pay interest on savings accounts because we don’t demand it. Where is the Democratic "tea party" - drinking tea? If we don't often call our representatives and demand things that are important to us, then keep plenty of popcorn available, OK? I don't hear the phones ringing!
EARL JOHNSON
Kernersville
Finish the Thought
Briefly complete the sentence below and sent it to us at letters@wsjournal.com. We'll print some of the results in a few days. Only signed entries, please - no anonymous ones.
“In its search for a new police chief, the Winston-Salem City Council should …”

35 comments:

  1. Precious children. They are indeed. Each year in America's center cities, hundreds of children are killed by soul less children under the heading of "gang violence". That descriptive seems to distract people from taking a harder look at this aspect of the problem. Our rotting culture has a diminished appreciation for life and an appetite for more violent entertainment. This gun debate will either stay focused on guns- the goal of some- or it will branch out into the more difficult issues of mental health, privacy, cultural treatment of mass violence portrayed as entertainment. Meantime, innocent life is cheap, young life is cheap, and soon enough elderly life will become cheap as a natural digression that is eating away at our modern society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. elderly life can vote. innocent and young life cannot.

      Delete
    2. Hence the inviolability of Medicare and Social Security (for current Tea Party beneficiaries anyhoo...it's the rest of us who can go to hell), and cuts to WIC and public education.

      It's all very short-sighted, but that's human nature.

      Delete
  2. A happy medium. There is no "happy" in this. A knee jerk emotional reaction is what is called for as politicians have to be seen as "doing something". I'm afraid that the only efforts made will be against high capacity magazines and "assault weapons". The "gun control" argument is two parts: guns and control. In the emotional state we now find ourselves in, some politicians are interested in "control" while demonizing the object and at the same time many are suspicious of the "control" and will protect the object. An "assault weapon" is not needed to carry out an assault. Full disclosure, I own a single barrel shotgun- a qualification to live in the county, and I own a small calibre revolver which I have had for years. Years ago, I had need of the revolver twice. If I became determined to assault something, the damage done with a shotgun fired just two or three times plus depleting the revolver only once would be horrific. The words mass shooting, assault weapons and magazines are used with the numbers of dead. What is the threshhold for a mass shooting? Four, seven, double digits?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. not that my definition has any significance but I say double digits.

      Delete
  3. Tax payers fault. It always is. Prices have already been going up. Where have you been? I trust you meant small D democratic reps? This fiscal predicament has bipartisan finger prints. Right now we can't- and won't- do anything about it. Afterall, the public has found its way into the public treasury. This sad event will have to run its course. The number one killer of the middle class has been the same killer over the decades: the ongoing devaluation of the purchasing power of the dollar. Health costs and higher education costs and housing costs are symptoms. You can thank the money printers at the Federal Reserve for no interest being paid by banks. After the fiscal cliff show, we can wait for the double feature called debt ceiling show. Who is the current "winner" in this debacle? Well politically it would be our President...briefly. Who is the loser? Young people of today and all children born from here on as far as the eye can see.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If it weren't so sad, it'd be funny.

    Most sane, thinking individuals, that leaves Rush out of course, have long recognized that our most recent problems with mass murderers is allowing mentally ill individuals access to guns. It's not the guns themselves, it people who buy them and leave them around where these 'nut' jobs can get a hold of them, and use them.

    So instead of trying to limit access to certain guns by sane, responsible people, why don't we start thinking about limiting access to guns to insane, irresponsible people.

    Maybe instead of just asking if the individual buying the firearms has been ajudicated insane, mentally defective etc. Why not add a question to the ATF form that says is anyone in your household insane etc.?

    I know that makes too much sense for all of the liberals in here to grasp all at once. But, sit down, have a cafe latte, and do some 'logical' thinking for a change. Maybe you'll actually start to consider some rational solutions to the problems we face with 'mentally ill' people for a change.

    ReplyDelete
  5. At least 'ol Bev signed one good bill.

    New Castle Doctrine law gives North Carolinians more power to protect themselves.

    http://www.foxcharlotte.com/news/local/North-Carolinas-new-Castle-Doctine-gun-law-takes-effect-Dec-1st-134793228.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've got a question. Why do people pay for flood insurance when they can just wait until a storm blows their house away, and Obamalikecare government funding will pick up the tab?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because the one percent who own most of the coastal property not only want 30% of all the money, they want the 99% to pay when their $3 million beach mansions get washed away.

      Just look into the shenanigans surrounding just one place, the Shell Island resort at Wrightsville Beach. Then take a gander at Ocean Isle Beach.

      Better yet, ask our new governor, Art Pope, who has been working diligently for years to undermine marine science and free up his millionaire pals to build more expensive doomed houses and resorts.

      Delete
    2. Government does a lot good things. It's just become a monster, and we can't rein it in.

      It's sorta like a liberal with a bad idea.

      Delete
  7. “In its search for a new police chief, the Winston-Salem City Council should …”

    Get down on their knees and beg Chief Cunningham to unresign.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is not my "chief" but I never knew just why he resigned. Maybe that dispute over the aftermath of the Womble car wreck was the last straw?

      Delete
    2. You got it.

      The initial "investigation" was a bit haphazard, but the second, done using a computer simulation, was no better. No real police chief can allow politics to dictate the outcome of any police investigation.

      Delete
    3. Did they 'ever' check 'in the bag' looking Womble for drugs? I doubt it.

      Cunningham has done an outstanding job, particularly if you compare him to the constantly drunk Sheriff Schatzman.

      Delete
    4. I'd rather be a jackass than scrotum sweat.

      Delete
    5. think about that one Bucky. it will come to you. I know it will. I have faith in you.

      Delete
    6. Not so sure it will. Tinybuck is a true expert on scrotum sweat...happens every time he clicks on one of those gay porn sites.

      Delete
  8. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders.

    This would not include the death of the killer if they should commit suicide at the same time, which most do.

    Since the vast majority of school shootings have involved fewer than four such deaths, they would not qualify as mass killings or murders.

    ReplyDelete
  9. LTE #1 And fetus lovers say yeah. Back market abortions are on the rise just like black market condom purchases increased aftet the Comstock act.
    Barriers To Entry
    Porn, protectionism, and the black-market origins of the American condom industry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What's interesting is that you can, if female, rip your unwanted fetus out of your body, and kill it, with the help of a doctor, but if someone else kills your fetus while unborn, he/she can be charged with murder in N.C.

      Makes perfect sense to a liberal.

      Delete
    2. and our fetus lover says yeah.

      Delete
    3. For once, Tinybuck is almost right. It doesn't make sense.

      That's because the unborn victims bill was passed by a bunch of fascist christians who are desperate to gain control of other people's lives, just like they did back in the days of the witch trials.

      Delete
    4. We've got another sexist and un-Constitutional law that liberals are pushing for re-authorization. The Violence Against Women Act.

      Taken from Wikipedia:

      VAWA was reauthorized by Congress in 2000, and again in December 2005.[4] The Act's 2012 renewal was opposed by conservative Republicans, who objected to extending the Act's protections to same-sex couples and to provisions allowing battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas.[5] In April 2012, the Senate voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, and the House subsequently passed its own measure (omitting provisions of the Senate bill that would protect gay men, lesbians, American Indians living in reservations, and illegal immigrants who were victims of domestic violence). Reconciliation of the two bills has been stymied by procedural measures, leaving the reauthorization in question.
      ________

      You can't 'protect' one group of people more than another. That's why I contend that these gay bathroom peepers will be reined in one day.

      Delete
    5. A repeat, regarding his favorite topic, just for the tiny one:

      I can see it now:

      USC Chapter 12 - Meat Inspection
      USC Section 461
      Chapter 10 - Poultry and Poultry Products Inspection
      USSC 696969

      It shall be unlawful for naughty gay boys to leer at the buttocks of chickens, Chicken Littles and closeted gay boys in any federally protected locker room between the hours of noon and 12:01 PM on alternate Fridays during the month of Ramadan.

      PENALTY Three laps around the locker room.

      Exception In case that the offender makes a "raspberry" sound while leering, the penalty shall be four laps around the locker room, followed by the washing out of the offenders mouth with vile tasting soap, conducted by a grandmotherly type while reciting the admonishment "You are a bad boy".

      Signed:

      Kaye Hagan, Senate Majority Leader
      Christine Quinn, Speaker of the House
      Hillary Clinton, President of the United States of America
      Friday, August 13, 2021

      I'm sure that Tiny has heard that raspberry more than once.

      Delete
  10. Wooooooooooooweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! McCrory finally takes over from Bev.

    Boy, if you've ever been in a car with a drunk driver and gotten out of the car alive, you know the sense of relief I feel right now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. If there was a Phargo's funnies page today I would put this here right there. A revelation came to me this am as I was listening, in a manly way of course, to one of Mrs WWs cooking shows. The term "tiramisu" was spoken out loud by a lady on the show! I had heard the word but thought it was a replacement term for something indelicate when used in the presence of ladies. Lo and behold the word is an Italian dessert! Who knew!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha, ha. better watch your mouth there, WW. If a day goes by that I don't learn something useful I am very disappointed.

      Tiramisu is wonderful…the original was made with lady fingers dipped in coffee, mascarpone cheese, egg yolks, cocoa and amaretto. Beth Tartan (Elizabeth Sparks) the long time Journal food editor taught me to make it when I was in grad school.

      There are many, many versions…some of my favorites use rum rather than amaretto. Beats plain old cheesecake six ways from Sunday.

      If MS. WW doesn't want to tackle the recipe, Whole Foods usually has several different versions in their ready made dessert cooler.

      Delete
    2. Whole Foods it will be. She doesn't want to tackle the recipe. Most likely I will get to go shopping for it..( in a manly sort of way).

      Delete
    3. By manly, I assume that you mean the quick in and out approach.

      If my wife or one of my female friends goes to the grocery store, there is a long, well organized list and the time will approach an hour.

      If I go to the grocery store, there is no list, so I will inevitably forget something, but the time will be well under 15 minutes and the beer selection will be better.

      If I accompany any of these women to the grocery store, the time will remain around an hour, but the beer selection will still be better...a trade off, as they say.

      Delete
  12. Same-sex domestic partners

    Revised regulations

    Regulations published in the Federal Register on June 1, 2010, add a section (5 CFR 875.213) expanding the definition of "qualified relative" to include same-sex domestic partners of eligible Federal and U.S. Postal Service employees and annuitants. Like all "qualified relatives," same-sex domestic partners are subject to full underwriting.

    Certification Required

    To apply for the FLTCIP, a same-sex domestic partner must check a box on the FLTCIP application certifying that documentation of the domestic partnership has been submitted to the employee/annuitant's agency or retirement system, as applicable.

    If you are an eligible same-sex domestic partner interested in applying for coverage under the FLTCIP, please read below for more information on how to apply.

    Source Federal Register
    ______

    Obama slipped this one up our butts while we weren't looking. Who knows what other laws he's circumventing.

    This is clearly against DOMA.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As always, time and ignorance march on, hand in hand.

      1. The USPS is an independent agency, so is not subject to DOMA.

      2. Due to your demonstrated debilities in reading and comprehension, you are unaware that similar accommodations have been worked out for certain foreign service and military personnel who do not fall under DOMA.

      3. Case by case, the downfall of DOMA is working its way through the courts. The USSC will hear its first case soon. Even someone as demented as John Scalia will have to do some fancy twisting and turning to avoid voiding this most un-American of laws.

      You angry old white christian fascists are dying off, thank goodness. Those of us who work in the psychiatric field are well aware that for "people" like you, the person that you hate the most is your own loser self.

      If you are so obsessed with men's dicks, maybe you ought to get one.

      Delete
    2. "1. The USPS is an independent agency, so is not subject to DOMA."

      Rush
      ___________

      domestic partners of eligible 'Federal' 'and' U.S. Postal Service employees and annuitants.

      Looks like your the one with reading comprehension problems.

      You're probably the dumbest human being I've ever meet in my life that claims to be a lawyer.

      Delete
    3. "...domestic partners of eligible 'Federal' 'and' U.S. Postal Service employees and annuitants."

      The eligible foreign service and military couples are federal employees not subject to DOMA.

      As I said "...debilities in reading and comprehension..."

      You can get you a dick here, Tiny, until the real thing comes along:

      Realdoe Slim

      Note that it is battery powered, so you can lick one of your Chick-fil-A frozen popsicles while playing with it.

      Delete