Happy Halloween

Dear Citizens:
I love All Hallow's eve and
I want to wish all a worry free happy Halloween.
Please don't worry about your candy, it is safe to eat.  Devils and Demons didn't pray over it as certain religious leaders claim.  Those religious leaders want all the candy for themselves and they will say anything to get it.  Besides most of them don't believe in All Hallows day so why are they fussing about its eve.

If you dress up like a Republican Senator or Congressman only say "No!" once to the young ones that come a rapping at your chamber door.  Then you can grudgingly give out the candy.  Stay in character.

Carve a smile into your pumpkin.  Trust me, you will feel better.

Don't grouse if someone comes around trick or treating for UNICEF.  This is not a fiendish one-world-government-plot.  The few pennies you donate will not help, in the least, the funding of the UN's secret black helicopter fleet. On this point Glen Beck and I agree.  FYI: the funding for that is already set aside.

OK, enough silliness, here is my little treat of a trick for you!
http://www.princeton.edu/~hammett/CardTrick/html/trick.html

Be well and Happy Halloween
A Journeyman

Trick or treat

Dear Citizens:
So many years ago- I don't remember, a small politically astute possum from the Okefanokee swamp debuted in the papers.  A few years later he made a statement that is as valid today as it was in those times.

First used in 1970 on an Earth Day poster

It fits well with Health Care Reform also

As the argument against health reform comes down more and more about the defeat of one man and not the health and welfare of a great nation's citizenry we must all examine, gentle citizens, who wants all health reform to fail.

The headlines always start something like this:

I don't care how sympathetic you are to those that don't have health insurance, and on and on-- 

and they end---We Just can't afford it!


Doesn't sound like someone who wants any Health Care reform, does it?


This just in:  Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) offered a defense of Bunning’s amendment by arguing that the 72-hour provision was critical because it provides time 
for senators to consult with health insurance lobbyists.
And this:
QUESTION: Will the Republicans put their alternative online for 72 hours as well?
BOEHNER: Uh, we’ll uh, we’ll have our ideas ready. Don’t worry.
Why won’t Bohner post the GOP plan? Because he doesn’t have one. Later in the press conference, this minor detail was revealed when a reporter pressed Boehner for a GOP alternative plan:
QUESTION: Is it your plan to have one Republican alternative that you all would get behind and endorse?
BOHNER: We have a number of ideas that we would like to proffer in this process, and we’re not quite sure 
how the majority intends to proceed. And so until we understand how they intend to proceed, 
it’s pretty difficult for us to have a solid plan.

It is easy to demonize Health Care Reform if those in opposition call it Obamacare or something else because they can still say they wanted Health Care: just not Obamacare.  It will be a nice trick if they can pull it off.  And the treat?  Well, you will get that on your insurance bill next year.  Better save up.

Be well citizens

A Journeyman

Scary times

Dear Citizens:
I have to take a quick trip to the western part of the state To converse, hob nob, and otherwise communicate with my fellow.....well you got the picture.
I will worry about some of my older readers (over 18) while I am gone and because of those worries I am setting forth a few reminders and responding to a few rumors.  I should be back in a few days.
First: if you are planning to go trick or treating -dressed as a "Tea-bagger" and asking your neighbors not to raise your taxes-- be warned it is rumored-- this conduct, in many areas, is illegal. 
Second: If any one approaches you dressed as a tea-bagger and demands: that you not raise his or her taxes or begs you to return his or her country.  Please treat them gently* and ask for a, one time only, agreeing fee ( 1%, of their gross income).  Send the collected fee to the US treasury and mark on the envelope, National debt reduction contribution.
Note to any ultra Tea Pots out there--So you will feel better in these difficult and scary times may I recommend Mr. Elwood Dowd's admonition.
"Harvey and I sit in the bars, have a drink or two, play the jukebox. And soon the faces of all the other people turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fellow.” Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments."


Be well citizens --I will be back soon
A Journeyman


*Remember: Never tease a weasel because weasels do not like it and teasing isn't nice.

Walk in the Park III

Continued from Sunday
"Would you explain more about your theories of  government, Colonel?"
" Dee-lighted, but my ideas were none too popular with the business community then and not much better received now.  I can tell you that."  He stared straight ahead at some distant point. "One leader of industry wrote to the New York Times that the rights and interests of the laboring man would be protected and cared for, not by labor agitators, but by the good Christian men that God had put in charge of the property interests of the country.  What unmitigated nonsense. You see -every man of power is capable of causing trouble to his neighbor."  He stopped and looked at me straight in the face and forcefully said,  "I told a group of veterans if they were good enough to shed blood for the country they were good enough to be given a square deal afterwards."  He chuckled to himself,  "And then, everyone in the country wanted a square deal and why not?" 
"It sounds a bit like now." I said hoping to calm the gentleman down.
"No, no," He spit out, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.  That is what many are doing now--nothing."
"I think those many are worried about the cost of government programs."
"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues."  He laughed and I laughed.
"Hi, what's the joke?" Three high school age runners passed me on the trail and eyed me suspiciously.
Mollie and I were very much alone.  The Colonel and his dog were gone.
"An old joke," I called out to them.  "Have a good run."
They waved in acknowledgement and vanished into the mist.
Be well
A Journeyman

The Parking Lot Committee

Gentle Citizens:
Check out the Christian Rumors side bar.
It falls under a category called "The Parking lot Committee".
This item was brought to the attention of your blogger by a realist whose head is in the clouds-Thanks
Be well all
A Journeyman

Walk in the Park II

Continued from yesterday,
"Let's first discuss the role of government."  Once more the toothy grin,  "When you, a citizen, threw the retrieval dummy into the water you had all the expectations of the dog retrieving it.  That is her main function."
"Certainly."
"My theory is your dog became "government" in that she ameliorated the situation of the retrieval dummy and you the citizen."  He stopped, reached down and took the bumper from Mollie's mouth and examined it.  "We used canvas for these in my time."  He looked back at me.  "You do understand, that pond didn't  care whether you got the dummy back or not so you had three choices.  One, the dummy would appear as if by magic and float over to you.  Two, you could wade in and by the time you found it you would be cold and probably catch your death or three, let the dog go in with all her expertise and training."
"That sounds a bit complicated."
"Bullfeathers man."  Came the stern reply, "It was simplicity itself, you had the dog and you used her.  The pond was not going to help. We have government to help the citizen not the pond." At this point he let out a marvelous long laugh.  "Well, sometimes we help a pond or two."
More soon.
Be well.

A Walk in the Park

Good Morning Citizens:
Many days I take my Chesapeake Bay Dog Mollie for a walk at the local nature park.  The 450 acre park is a reclaimed borrow pit and trash area with three small lakes interspersed with extensive wetlands and forested tracts.  This is as close as Mollie and I get to hunting most of the year.  I toss a few sticks in the water and Mollie never fails to swim out and retrieve them.
It was cold and misty yesterday when Mollie persuaded me to take her to the park   At the edge of the wetlands across from Whispering Pines Trail I let her off lead and threw a retrieval bumper into a pond.  It  lodged under the surface in silt and Mollie undeterred repeatedly waded  back into the pond searching for the bumper.  After much splashing about by the frustrated retriever the bumper surfaced and she fetched her prize up to where I stood.
"Bully, bully for her!," A voice shouted out from behind, "She kept after it until she found it.  Well done!"
I turned to see a large man an inch or two shorter than me eyeing us from the trail head.  A large golden Chesapeake Bay Dog sat at attention next to him.  I walked up the bank and shook his hand.
"Call me Colonel and walk with me," He commanded through a big toothy grin.  "Let me explain any number of things to you.  Bracing, this weather, is it not?"  And he strode off.
Like a good soldier and somewhat in shock, I replied, "Yes, sir." And then hurried up the trail to catch him.
More tommorrow.
Be well.
A Journeyman Citizen

Afgan Worries posted by my friend Slugg

"Those demanding more combat troops for Afghanistan also avoid defining the real costs. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the war was running $2.6 billion a month in Pentagon expenses alone even before Obama added 20,000 troops this year. Surely fiscal conservatives like McCain and Graham who rant about deficits being “generational theft” have an obligation to explain what the added bill will be on an Afghanistan escalation and where the additional money will come from. But that would require them to use the dread words “sacrifice” and “higher taxes” when they want us to believe that this war, like Iraq, would be cost-free.

"The real troop numbers are similarly elusive. Pre-emptively railing against the prospect of “half measures” by Obama, Lieberman asked MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell rhetorically last week whether it would be “real counterinsurgency” or “counterinsurgency light.” But the measure Lieberman endorses — Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s reported recommendation of 40,000 additional troops — is itself counterinsurgency light.


"In his definitive recent field manual on the subject, Gen. David Petraeus stipulates that real counterinsurgency requires 20 to 25 troops for each thousand residents. That comes out, conservatively, to 640,000 troops for Afghanistan (population, 32 million). Some 535,000 American troops couldn’t achieve a successful counterinsurgency in South Vietnam, which had half Afghanistan’s population and just over a quarter of its land area."
---------------------------------------------


recommended Reading: http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/troops/

It'll either break your heart or enrage you.  Maybe both...

All the best...

Slugg

The Prize

Dear Citizens:
We Americans are a contentious lot.  It matters not a whit whether we are liberal, conservative, black, white or light green we must find something to argue about.  That's one reason we blog.
In the paper today George Will wrote about three liberals in three Priuses and only one parking spot at a local Whole Foods.  Pity the poor security guard at that store.  We like to fuss and the ones with the most seem to fuss the loudest.  We are the most blessed nation on earth but we do enjoy our "attitude".  
I hear a good friend calling out  "stop sniveling and get to the point".
Here it is.  The world views The United States of America still as a place of hope and dreams and the one country whose leader can use "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

Columnist Robert Naiman said that "anyone who thinks this award is unprecedented hasn't been paying attention''.

"The Nobel committee gave South African bishop Desmond Tutu the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his leadership of efforts to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid wasn't fully abolished in South Africa until 1994,''

But still we will fuss.  We profess "all are equal" and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness"--Come on-- we are the good guys but we prefer John Wayne in Rio Bravo to Gary Cooper in High Noon.  We like Cain and Chuck Norris better than The Dali Lama and Gandhi.   We like action.  There it is.

Others in this world take a different view of us and what we could do.   Is it possible that they want us to walk the walk as well as talk the talk as far as our  ideals go?  Maybe we should speak a bit softer and threaten less with our big sticks so we can hear them. 

Be Well 

A Journeyman Citizen

Hail to our Chiefs

Sitting Presidents who were Nobel Laureates

"I am profoundly moved and touched by the signal honor shown me through your body in conferring upon me the Nobel Peace Prize. There is no gift I could appreciate more and I wish it were in my power fully to express my gratitude. I thank you for it, and I thank you on behalf of the United States; for what I did, I was able to accomplish only as the representative of the nation of which, for the time being, I am president."

"In accepting the honor of your award I am moved not only by a profound gratitude for the recognition of my [sincere and] earnest efforts in the cause of peace, but also by a very poignant humility before the vastness of the work still called for by this cause.

May I not take this occasion to express my respect for the far-sighted wisdom of the founder in arranging for a continuing system of awards? If there were but one such prize, or if this were to be the last, I could not of course accept it. For mankind has not yet been rid of the unspeakable horror of war. I am convinced that our generation has, despite its wounds, made notable progress. But it is the better part of wisdom to consider our work as one begun. It will be a continuing labor. In the indefinite course of [the] years before us there will be abundant opportunity for others to distinguish themselves in the crusade against hate and fear and war.

There is indeed a peculiar fitness in the grouping of these Nobel rewards. The cause of peace and the cause of truth are of one family. Even as those who love science and devote their lives to physics or chemistry, even as those who would create new and higher ideals for mankind in literature, even so with those who love peace, there is no limit set. Whatever has been accomplished in the past is petty compared to the glory and promise of the future."

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. 

Well said Gentlemen

Be well citizens

A Journeyman Citizen

Special Day

Dear Citizens

Today is a very special day in the history of Hampton, VA

I believe we can find a neo-Old Point Comfort now in the Coliseum Mall

and it is named

Five Guys

wonderful hamburgers and fries

open today

Be well

A very stuffed Journeyman Citizen

A United Methodist Bishop's thoughts on health-care

Thinking like Christians about health care

By Bishop William Willimon, North Alabama Conference

Bishop Willimon

Brother Rowe Wren recently wrote to say, "I would like your thoughts on ... the present health-care bill." In my travels around the conference, I have heard much discussion on this pressing issue before our nation.

I personally find the bill being debated and proposed to be fearfully complicated. But it is an attempt to solve a complicated and expensive problem. Yet we must not be deterred by the complexity.

Above all, we are enjoined to think about this issue and any others like Christians. (If you are interested in a thoughtful response to health care by some of the leaders of our church, then log into health care <http://www.umc-gbcs.org/> .) http://www.umc-gbcs.org/site/c.frLJK2PKLqF/b.2794211/k.C908/Welcome_to_The_General_Board_of_Church_and_Society.htm?sid=70706308

I'm not sure that I have special light to spread on this subject other than my own attempts to think about this issue in a Christian way. Here, for what they are worth, are some of my responses:

* I hear that most Americans are "happy with their health insurance." I sure am. Our denomination provides our elders with the most generous of health-care programs. North Alabama Conference heavily subsidizes the health insurance of our retired elders. I am deeply grateful for such support.

We can't leave it at that, however. The most underserved in our society when it comes to health care are poor children. Alabama leads the nation in the number of children who are untouched by medical care, making us also a leader in childhood malnutrition and illness.

As the church, Jesus has given us responsibility for the "least of these." Saying that "I am happy with my health care" is not saying enough. Our concern should not be to protect our entitlements but rather our Jesus-assigned concern is "Am I happy with my neighbor's health care?"

* Scripture tells us that we are "not to bear false witness." It is tough enough to have a national debate over an issue of this complexity without deliberate misinformation being put out on the airways to muddy the conversation and spread unwarranted fear.

* I am so disappointed by our state's members of Congress. Most of them have contributed nothing to this debate. They show a callous disregard for the welfare of their poorest constituents. Let's urge our elected officials to get in the debate and craft good legislation.

I'm glad that our elected representatives have health care; thousands of their constituents don't.

We have the most expensive health-care system in the world that leaves out millions because, while it is not government run, it is dominated by the insurance companies. I'm glad that our elected representatives have health care; thousands of their constituents don't.

* I fully trust the American Medical Assn. (AMA) and our doctors to worry about health care. They say we need dramatic reform. Methodists should care about those who can't get health care as much as the AMA is concerned.

I visit church after church where the congregation is having to pull together and provide funds - thank goodness! - for people in their congregation or community who have suffered catastrophic financial loss due to huge medical bills. Some of our health-care professionals volunteer every year to work in medical missions where Christians are trying to help those left out of our health-care system.

Why? We think about these issues with scripture, with Luke 10 where, in one of Jesus' favorite stories, the Samaritan says, "Take care of the wounded man and when I return I will repay you whatever it costs."

It would be great for every pastor and church to explore how your congregation can prayerfully, thoughtfully respond to this issue. Surely we can do better than the likes of TV's Glen Beck and Joe Scarborough.

Of course, they have no desire to think about this issue with Jesus, and it shows. But we do!

Read Luke 10:25-35! Then, "go and do likewise."

__._,_.___

Health-care

Dear Citizens:
Yesterday I posted this on face-book during a spirited debate.
Anyone who is a citizen deserves health-care from the government.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I like that part about "promoting the general welfare"
I have asked the ones who responded to allow me to post their responses and I am interested in your ideas.  I myself like the single payer option.
Be well citizens
A Journeyman Citizen


a few responses 
from Kevin
"Promoting" and "providing" doesn't mean government provided health care insurance is a right or entitlement. Nor does the government have the power to require individual citizens or privately owned small businesses to purchase health care insurance.
from Jay (a concerned Catholic)

It seems to me if you provide it, you have to run it. To run it you should have a track record of running organizations with a positive cash flow or run it as a non-profit. Our gov't is already 2 trillion dollars further into the hole the previous Congress left us in. Shouldnt we try to get out of the hole first, instead of diving in deeper?
The insurance companies are making a mint. Healthcare companies charge accordingly to keep up. But they charge a significantly different price if you do not have insurance. That is where it is broken. Gov't could assist there possibly rather than creating a costly alternative that looks good up front but costs future generations trillions. And quit trying to add so many 'extras', like paying for abortions and stem cell research and calling it 'health care'.

Nikki
I would love to quit my two jobs, that I have CHOSEN to work (like all the other decisions in my life), stay home and sit on my a......and let the government take care of me. Do you think the food bank has delivery??? Sorry. don't have time to finish debating this, have one of my jobs to get to!

Wow

Interesting fact.
In the year 2008 The Virginia State Police processed over 250,000 background checks for purchase of firearms.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
There are over 7.5 million residents in Virginia approx. 23% are under 18 and are not of legal age to own a firearm.
That makes 5 and three quarter million who can.


This is one reason to own good affordable health care.
Be well