To The Point

2009-08-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

inside city hall, 8-5-09

Our Farmer’s Market is catching on. Five vendors gathered in the Down Town Park Saturday morning with a variety of things to sell: peaches, green apples, black-eyed peas, squash, okra, peppers, doggie treats, chow-chow, barbecue sauce and World War Two jeeps.

More and more folks are coming down to see what is available, even before the vendors get there. We’re gonna get these starting times coordinated, so hang in there with us, please. Everyone who comes out has a good time. Sweat may be tickling the end of their noses, but folks enjoy the market scene.

No one expects to get rich doing this, but one can make a few dollars. But more than anything everyone is taking part in the future of Munday. We are all going to make this Farmer’s Market work. We need buyers, sellers, encouragers, helpers, it is a community enterprise and it will take all of us working together.

This week we expect to have more of the same but some of other things. I’m going out on a limb and promise there will be more black-eye peas, okra and tomatoes. So vendors, please don’t make a liar of me.

The community garden idea is not dead, even though not much has been said about it lately. The council has met for the last time until January, but we are all going to be planning, preparing our garden spots, and just getting ready to plant next spring. When we locate lots we can use for gardens, people who want to use them need to start as early as late fall to clean and get the ground ready for planting. I’m told by experienced gardeners to begin soon. So, there is no time to waste.

From the produce that has come in to market we have a good idea what to encourage gardeners to grow next spring. We can say, “Grow everything, just more of it.” Some like to grow some things and not others. Hopefully we will have everything imaginable growing with the market in mind. Somehow we need melons in our market. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Munday could furnish the melons for Knox City’s festival? It would indeed!

If you are interested at all in our garden quest, please don’t forget to get started on your preparations. I will try to keep reminding everyone to be working.

The most important decision we make is the attitude we choose to live each day when dealing with people and circumstances. That’s right. You purposefully choose your attitude. Choosing a positive state of mind will lead to success in your career and life. A negative attitude will lead to unhappiness, poor relationships, difficulty at work and ultimately, poor health.

Aren’t we born with our attitudes? We may be genetically predisposed in that direction, but our attitude comes from within: We determine our own attitude. Of course we blame others, circumstances or events for our situation: but the key is our response to those things or people. As we go about our daily routine we usually have a series of encounters with things and people we think causes a reaction in us. In reality we choose that reaction.

Misery loves company: negative people will search out others and attempt to bring them down to their level. Their negative influence feels powerful and they use it as a self-esteem boost: They do this to feel better about themselves. Avoid negative people, they will drag you down.

In my work as a manager, I have found there are basically two kinds of people -- those who take responsibility for their lives and those who blame others. People who take responsibility for their situations are positive people who see the world as a good place. They have made a conscious decision to be this way.

Market Munday yourself, don’t wait for someone else to do it. Think garage sale in September and Christmas in December. Share with someone what you think.

2009-07-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

This is the way my lot looks to me, Blue Bonnets and blue skys.

2009-07-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, 7-29-09

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Plus I have had a lot to do. Now a lot is a lot to do. Not everyone has such a lot to do. But some of us have a big lot to do. And some of us will do a lot. It’s our lot in life to do our big lot. If you have a lot, but not a lot to do, consider yourself fortunate just to have a lot. (Everyone who can figure out the puzzle gets a lifetime subscription to “Inside City Hall.”)

Munday Farmer’s Market continues to grow. Grow is all we can do since we started with nothing. Saturday morning there were three tables of vegetables set up in the Downtown Park. Every week more people come out to see what is on the tables. Saturday everyone wanted black-eyed peas, but were disappointed to find none. Where are the black-eyed peas? There’s bound to be black-eyed peas in the area. Some of these folks are driving in from surrounding towns because they heard we had a Farmer’s Market. Don’t you laugh at that. We do have a Farmer’s Market. It will grow into something we will be proud of.

The Munday Community Garden-Farmer’s Market Council will meet this Thursday, July 30 at the Church of Christ Fellowship Hall at 7 p.m.

Memorial Garden is all but finished. When you look at it please be kind: don’t comment on the smallness of the whole thing. And don’t ask, “Where is the grass?” Hey, we got seven trees and several shrubs. The granite will be here in several weeks, hopefully along with the two flag poles. But don’t ask, “Where are the flags?” Heck, by the time Keep Munday Beautiful Volunteers seed it, or sod it, and water it, WE will have a beautiful memorial garden. Oh, one other thing, don’t ask, “Where are the benches?” Yeah, we will want benches so we can sit and watch the flags flapping in the breeze. And a mosquito repellent dispenser, we’ll certainly need on of those. All negativity aside, the garden will be beautiful, I am a little disappointed in what we didn’t get for a lot of money. Someone said, “Maybe if there is any left over. . .”

Pudd n Pie will close its doors August 1. I hate to see it happen, but of course we understand the reasons why. This neat little place has become a favorite of so many of Munday’s important people, as well as all others. Big plans have been concocted around Rita’s round table. And Bill Crawford had a voice in all of it. At least we could hear him complain, “How you going to pay for it?”

It took a lot of courage, as well as money, for Rita to open the store. And she has tried hard to have a good menu and delicious food. I’ve not heard one complaint about her food.

So, as mayor and friend I’m proclaiming Friday, August 1, as Rita Day in Munday. I’m asking everyone to go by and extend their heartfelt thanks to Rita and the girls. Let her know you appreciate her courage.

Now I want to say something about the reasons why. I have heard several Munday merchants say, “Munday people do not support their local businesses.” After about the third time to hear this I began to look around to see who is shopping in Munday.
A lot of strangers come to Munday to eat, shop, rent videos, get haircuts, pay their fines. I won’t embarrass store owners by naming them, but a lot of them said, “I have a few regulars from Munday, but a lot of first timers from out-of-town.” A lot of these folks are just passing through and see a store sign that intrigued them, so they decided to stop and browse, and even buy.

Lately I’ve gone to Seymour and Knox City to check out restaurants. No, it didn’t take long, but I learned a lot. Munday folks frequent two eating places in Seymour and two in Knox City. Okay, maybe the menu is better and maybe even the food. But that is why restaurants don’t make it in Munday.

The facts are: not enough out-of-town people shop here to support our merchants. But if Munday folks would stay home more and support our merchants, Munday might survive. Support them all, or watch them close their doors. This is not the entertainment section folks, so let’s get serious.

Make an opportunity to Market Munday. Don’t forget, stay home the fourth of July. (How many times does the word “lot” appear in this column?)

2009-07-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Kansas Congressman Todd Tiahrt is facing criticism for telling the truth.

The congressman's recent comments targeted tax-funded abortions, arguing such services would encourage single moms living below the poverty level to abort their unborn children. Tiahrt then made this supposition: "If you take that scenario and apply it to many of the great minds we have today, who would we have been deprived of? Our president grew up in those similar circumstances. If that financial incentive was in place, is it possible that his mother may have taken advantage of it?"

Some in the liberal press and Congress are demanding an apology from Tiahrt for his comments. Troy Newman of Operation Rescue makes note of the congressman's statement, and offers this supporting explanation:

"The African-American population actually experiences a much higher rate of abortions than white people do," explains the pro-life leader. "And...if taxpayer-funded abortions were available back when Judge Clarence Thomas was conceived, or even Barack Obama was conceived, there's a high probability that they would have been aborted."

A documentary called Maafa 21 documents what many African-American pastors are now calling "genocide" directed at the black population. "The African-American population only makes up 13 percent of the population of America," Newman points out, "but they account for 36 percent of all abortions." In addition, statistics show the abortion rate among black women is five times higher than that for white women.

In a press release, Operation Rescue says Tiahrt's comments "were exactly on point, and actually did not go far enough."

As for the calls for an apology for citing statistics that show black women are disproportionately targeted for abortion? "It is a legitimate question that needs to be asked," says Newman. "[But] the last thing abortion promoters want is dialog on this subject."

2009-07-21T09:09:00.001-07:00

Presented as the program for the Lion's Club Today

Some of you knew me before...before I had to leave Munday to find a job and before I became Buddy.

I was born here in Munday, mainly to be close to my parents. I just can’t imagine what my early life would have been like without having my parents around. I thank God today that I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a home with both parents around.

I was the eighth child in my family. Three died at child birth. Both my parents were middle age of course when I was born. To me they looked a lot older than the parents of my classmates. That’s because they were. My oldest sister, Bertie Mae was 20 years older than me. Her oldest daughter was only two years younger tham me.

My folks were poor, but in those days it didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t make any difference to us. We did well in school, particpated in everything, especially sports. If it hadn’t been for sports I could have dropped out of school and toughed it out, like so many did in those days.

All said and done, I had a happy childhood growing up here in Munday. I don’t think a child could have had a better place to grow up. Munday was a lively place in those days, with a business in every building in town. There were three drugstores in downtown Munday. Three car dealerships. Two variety stores. Two or three barber shops. Several grocery stores. A couple of gins and several elevators. I don’t know how many service stations, not just a filling station either.

And a depot. I remember when there were railroad tracks dividing the town. At one time there was a doodle bug that traveled from Wichita Falls to Abilene. That was when I was very young.

Stores stayed open late in those days, especially on Saturdays. There would be more people in town on Saturday night than at any other time. There were two picture shows here then: the Roxy and the Roy. English and Spanish.

I could go on and one about what was here and all the things we did as kids. I remember one experience in particular that brings a smile whenever I think of it. I had just bought my first bicycle. I had saved up $10 to buy it. I was riding toward Munday Lumber Company where my dad was working on a job. It used to be behind where Phillips Bait shop is now. I was riding along north of the court house when I had a blowout. It was summer and hot and the guys were playing dominoes on the lawn, just a few feet where I was riding. It was a loud blowout, sounded like a gunshot. And everyone of those guys jumped like they had been shot. Dominoes went everywhere.

We had no idea that things could or would change. Things hadn’t changed in Munday very much in the last 50 years. But these last 50 years have seen unbelievable change.

It’s demoralizing to dwell on the changes that have happened to every small town in America, and to the country itself.

When I left Munday the first time it was to go to college in Abilene. I had been further away from Munday, like to Lubbock and Waco. Like all kids who go away to school, it was an experience to latch on to responsibility. Moma couldn’t get me out-be-bed anymore. I didn’t have her fresh biscuits for breakfast anymore. I had to look after myself for the first time: it’s a cruel world out there.

When I applied to Hardin Simmons I used the only name I had then, Bunny. The form didn’t ask if I was male for female. So when I got to HSU to move in and all they had put me in Behrens Hall. Well, that’s the freshman girls dorm. When I showed up ready to move in they had a problem. Well, it was really my problem, but they were not going to let me move into Behren’s Hall. Well, where am I going to live? They didn’t know and didn’t care, but I was not moving into Behren’s Hall. That chapter in my life was closed as far as they were concerned.

Later that year the girls at Behren's Hall selected me as the Behren's Hall Beau. So, in one respect I did move in after all.

After a year and a half I dropped out to work and save some money. But the United States was involved in an undeclared war in Vietnam and the draft board was recruiting for the Army. When I reached 21 I would be drated into the Army, which meant I would soon be on my way to Vietnam. I joined the Air Force instead.

When I filled out the papers to join I used the only name I had, Bunny. To make sure Bunny had been born the Air Force looked at my birth certificate. I had
never seen it, didn’t know it existed. When I started to school I guess people knew I had been born and who to, and all that, so I didn’t need a birth certificate.

Bunny Norville didn’t exist. I walked and talked and breathed like everyone else but that recruiting sargeant told me I didn’t exist. But it just so happened that there was a child born to my parents on my birthday, the same day same year, same parents, but it wasn’t Bunny. It was Buddy. Can you imagine what a shock it was to learn you had been using the wrong name your whole life?

Doc Smith must have heard it wrong, but he was the one that filled out the birth certifcate. He probably just couldn’t believe what he heard so he ablibbed a little bit.

However, it was probably a blessing at that particular time in my life. What if I had gone to boot camp as a Bunny? The drill sargeants would have had a time with that. It was bad enough being a “Buddy”.

When I came home on leave before shipping out to Japan everyone in town wanted to know why the FBI was asking so many questions about me. They were concerned that maybe I was in some kind of trouble. The work I was going into required a Top Secret clearance, so that’s why the FBI agents were around asking questions. When I got to Japan there was this guy in the squadron who wasn’t allowed “upstairs” where all the secret stuff took place. He was waiting on the FBI to come get him and take him to prison. It seems he had driven the gettaway car during a bank heist in Mississippi. The background check found him out.

They called by branch of the service “The Security Service.” Some folks think right away that was the APs. Not by a long shot. We were really spys: we spied on Russia, China, North Korea and even on ourselves. It wasn’t as fun as the 007s and guys from Langly. We were really communications spys. My training thus far had been in morse code. I was taught how to read morse code. I was sent to Japan to be an airborn radio intercept operator. Some of our guys went to school for two years to learn Russian, Chinese and other languages.

We flew c-130s out of Japan, to spy on Russia and China, sometimes North Korea. These planes were loaded with the latest communications technology. We had receivers tuned into every frequency that our cold-war enemies operated on. All of this traffic was recorded and sent back to the squadron to be transcribed, translated and codes broken.

Sometimes the flights got a little rough, like when Russia would pick us up on radar and scramble their MIGS. That’s when our pilot got on his radio and requested, “Mother hen scramble chicks.” The F-102s would come to our aid and escort us out of Russia. However, sometimes they didn’t get there soon enough, and the MIGS opened fire on our craft. We didn’t lose any of the 130s, although one of our U2s wasn’t so lucky. We weren’t supposed to have U2s in Japan, under the agreement with the Japanese government. But we had them. They didn’t usually fly day time, but sometimes they got delayed and couldn’t get back under the cover of night. One such time a Tokyo television camerman saw a U2 landing just after daybreak.

We always knew when a U2 took off: they made a lot of noise.

I would love to take our present Commander-in-Chief up on one of those missions and see what he would say when the plane got caught over Russia. What would he say then about our “wornout ways”? I think he would be on his knees quicker than any of us. I’ll tell you one thing, there were no athiests on those missions.

After two years of all this excitement I was cross-trained into another career field. Sometimes too many people are assigned to any organization and they have to get rid of some of them. For awhile I was parked at a desk doing computations for bombing strikes. I was with the First Shoran Beacon Squadron, Yokota Air Base. Our squadron flew B-57s, a light, short-ranged bomber. Each aircraft had a pilot and a navigator. Shoran is short for short range, so we computed information for short range bomb runs. Everything we did was just for practice.

Then someone in Washington had the bright idea that the B-57 would work great in Vietnam. Before long my boss and I were on our way to Vietnam. Our orders said we were going on a surveying mission. We were to survey the whole country and be ready to do bombing computations for the B-57s. Would you believe I was excited about going. We packed all kinds of equipment and rations, but no weapons. At this time our guys were only advisors and not allowed to shoot back. So, somebody thought we wouldn’t need weapons, since we weren’t allowed to use them anyway.

While we were enroute our orders changed. No surveys would be done. We came home. Soon the B-57s were on their way to Vietnam to be used as support aircraft for short range missions. The rest of us were sent back to the states to other assignments. Before the planes could be used in Vietnam they were all destroyed during one raid of the Viet Cong on Da Nang Air Base.

These planes had seen some combat in the Korean conflict, now they were all gone. What a sad ending that was.

It was sad too to leave the squadron, which was now defunct. It was a small outfit and we got to know each other and enjoyed doing things with each other. We had a basketball team, which never won a game but we had a good time. I played football on the base team, which had a better record. We only lost to the Army team from Korea. Those teams had drafted professional players on the field. That’s all those guys did was play.

I’m going to stop here for today. Maybe the next time I’ll finish out my Air Force career and begin with the next life-changing phase of my life.

2009-07-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Presented at the Lion's Club: as the program for the day.

Some of you knew me before...before I had to leave Munday to find a job and before I became Buddy.

I was born here in Munday, mainly to be close to my parents. I just can’t imagine what my early life would have been like without having my parents around. I thank God today that I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a home with both parents around.

I was the eighth child in my family. Three died at child birth. Both my parents were middle age of course when I was born. To me they looked a lot older than the parents of my classmates. That’s because they were. My oldest sister, Bertie Mae was 20 years older than me. Her oldest daughter was only two years younger tham me.

My folks were poor, but in those days it didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t make any difference to us. We did well in school, particpated in everything, especially sports. If it hadn’t been for sports I could have dropped out of school and toughed it out, like so many did in those days.

All said and done, I had a happy childhood growing up here in Munday. I don’t think a child could have had a better place to grow up. Munday was a lively place in those days, with a business in every building in town. There were three drugstores in downtown Munday. Three car dealerships. Two variety stores. Two or three barber shops. Several grocery stores. A couple of gins and several elevators. I don’t know how many service stations, not just a filling station either.

And a depot. I remember when there were railroad tracks dividing the town. At one time there was a doodle bug that traveled from Wichita Falls to Abilene. That was when I was very young.

Stores stayed open late in those days, especially on Saturdays. There would be more people in town on Saturday night than at any other time. There were two picture shows here then: the Roxy and the Roy. English and Spanish.

I could go on and one about what was here and all the things we did as kids. I remember one experience in particular that brings a smile whenever I think of it. I had just bought my first bicycle. I had saved up $10 to buy it. I was riding toward Munday Lumber Company where my dad was working on a job. It used to be behind where Phillips Bait shop is now. I was riding along north of the court house when I had a blowout. It was summer and hot and the guys were playing dominoes on the lawn, just a few feet where I was riding. It was a loud blowout, sounded like a gunshot. And everyone of those guys jumped like they had been shot. Dominoes went everywhere.

We had no idea that things could or would change. Things hadn’t changed in Munday very much in the last 50 years. But these last 50 years have seen unbelievable change.

It’s demoralizing to dwell on the changes that have happened to every small town in America, and to the country itself.

When I left Munday the first time it was to go to college in Abilene. I had been further away from Munday, like to Lubbock and Waco. Like all kids who go away to school, it was an experience to latch on to responsibility. Moma couldn’t get me out-be-bed anymore. I didn’t have her fresh biscuits for breakfast anymore. I had to look after myself for the first time: it’s a cruel world out there.

When I applied to Hardin Simmons I used the only name I had then, Bunny. The form didn’t ask if I was male for female. So when I got to HSU to move in and all they had put me in Behrens Hall. Well, that’s the freshman girls dorm. When I showed up ready to move in they had a problem. Well, it was really my problem, but they were not going to let me move into Behren’s Hall. Well, where am I going to live? They didn’t know and didn’t care, but I was not moving into Behren’s Hall. That chapter in my life was closed as far as they were concerned.

After a year and a half I dropped out to work and save some money. But the United States was involved in an undeclared war in Vietnam and the draft board was recruiting for the Army. When I reached 21 I would be drated into the Army, which meant I would soon be on my way to Vietnam. I joined the Air Force instead.

When I filled out the papers to join I used the only name I had, Bunny. To make sure Bunny had been born the Air Force looked at my birth certificate. I had

2009-07-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, 7-22-09

The Farmer’s Market is still alive. Thank you Robin Leija for taking the time to pack up your tomatoes and other veggies and go to market with them. We are proud of you for braving the unknown and stepping out like that. Hope to see you there again Saturday, and that you will have a lot of customers. There should be plenty of black-eyed peas around, won’t someone pick a few and bring them to market so some of us who don’t have a garden can buy some.

The East Side Park is here, or there, across from Dollar General. Contractors began working on the site last Friday. Work on the grounds and sidewalks will go forward soon. However, the etching of the photos on the large piece of granite will take about two months to complete. Keep your eyes on that spot. The powers that be say it’s okay for anyone to cut weeds and grass around the area where the park will be. So if that is what you have been waiting for to volunteer your time and equipment, well, go for it. Your destiny awaits you on east main street.

Talk about weeds. Do you know what the most populous, not popular, plant in Munday is? We’re not gonna count Bermuda grass. Have you looked around town lately? Careless weeds are everywhere. If we crossed Careless weeds with cotton plants what would we get? Would it become a six-foot plant with small white boles that stack up like careless weed seeds do now? Or a shorter version with ball-like fuzzy green pods? The big question, would it be drought resistant? Would insects go for it?

The way we earthlings allow Careless weeds to take over our yards and all, space travellers would probably think we love them. These hardy ladies line our roadways, squeeze through the cracks in our sidewalks. They grow in our gutters, fill our flower beds, take over our alleys and vacant lots. They have invaded again, hell bent on producing as many seeds as possible.

I’ve noticed a couple of the critters outside Dairy Queen, growing through the crack where the parking lot meets the sidewalk, a few feet from the east door. At first I thought I should pull it, being the Jolly Green Giant that I am. But my sinister side took over, and I decided to wait, to see how tall it would grow, and how long before someone from management removed it. Any wagers? I’m sorry, we can’t do that in Munday.

By now the word should have reached everyone in town about our litter-free community. We at City Hall have accepted the challenge of Keeping Munday Beautiful: Munday is now officially a Litter-Free Community. We, as citizens of Munday have an obligation to help keep Munday clean, or cleaner. I invite everyone in town to become Litter Lifters, your job description is to pick and pitch: pick it up and pitch it in the trash can. Everyone can do it, no special training needed, in most cases. Pretend that litter you see on the ground is a fifty dollar bill. If you really saw a fifty, or even a one, you would pick it up. I even bend over to pick up pennies.

As Litter Lifters, what are our boundaries? Naturally you should do your own yards first, all your yard: lawn, beds, curbs, gutters, alleys, trees and drive ways. Does that leave anything out around your place? If so, use your imagination and come up with a solution. Now it gets tricky. Let’s say you have a neighbor that is out-of-town or out-of-the-country. You would appreciate someone doing your yard for you if you were on an extended stay out-of-town. Right? Then you know where I’m going with this idea. It won’t hurt any of us to do a little extra for someone else. And it will make you feel good about yourself. When you give yourself away, it always makes you feel better.

Munday town is looking good. Take a little drive around town this evening, or this weekend, and you will see the difference. Especially aroun the overpass. You’ll feel proud to be from Munday: there’s no other place on earth like it. Careless weeds or not.

Don’t forget to market Munday every chance you get. And be here the fourth. Start thinking about a Christmas to Remember in Munday. Let’s do something special this year.

2009-07-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

Right on, Andy Rooney!

Andy Rooney said on '60 Minutes' a few weeks back:

I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens...Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

I believe they are called the Boy Scouts for a reason, which is why there are no girls allowed. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts! ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE?

I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion.

I have the right 'NOT' to be tolerant of others because they are different, weird, or tick me off.

When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.

I believe that if you are selling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American/Canadian/British citizen, you should have to speak English!

My father and grandfather didn't die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.

I think the police should have every right to shoot or arrest you if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or 'stop' in English, see the above lines.

I don't think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special National Assistance, loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, corner store, or any other business.

We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms, so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our constitution is a living document; and open to their interpretations.

I don't hate the rich I don't pity the poor

I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television. That doesn't stop you from watching them.

I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that's better, and put your name on the building.

It doesn't take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent to stand up to the kid; and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say 'NO!'

I think tattoos and piercing are fine if you want them, but please don't pretend they are a political statement. And, please, stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don't want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me French fries!

I am sick of 'Political Correctness.' I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa ; so how can they be 'African-Americans/Canadian/British'? Besides, Africa is a continent.. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was fromEurope . I am proud to be fromAmerica and nowhere else

And if you don't like my point of view, tough...

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE CANADIAN FLAG, to the BRITISH FLAG & TO THE FLAG OF THEUNITED STATES OF AMERICA , AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTYAND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

I was asked to send this on if I agree, or delete if I don't. It is said that on average 86% of Canadians/ Americans & British believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having 'In God We Trust' on American money and having 'God' in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 15%+ to BE QUIET!!!

If you agree, pass this on, if not delete.

2009-07-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

2009-07-19T15:17:00.001-07:00

Okay, who shot off the fireworks?

2009-07-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

2009-07-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

City Council declares Munday an Anti-Litter Community, will support 2010 Census

The Munday City Council heard an array of different reports, proclamations and presentations Tuesday evening at its July meeting.

Following the invocation by member Adrin Fletcher, Bobby D. Barnett suggested to the council that we need to do something to memorialize those from the past who got us where we are today. He mentioned such things as the airport, the lake, the drainage ditch and the city hall building that we take for granted today. He said a plaque engraved with their names would be a fine gesture on our part. Barnett mentioned Mose Wiggins, Jim Reeves and Walter Hertel, but said there were many more.

David Kuehler, director of the North Central Texas Municipal Water Authority spoke about the importance of exercising water valves to keep them operational. He said mineral deposits can build up inside the valves and if they aren't opened at least twice a year they could freeze up and become inoperable. Kuehler then introduce an electric opener for those stubborn valves that refuse to open. One of these machines can save a crew up to two days off the exercising time. He is making the machine available to the city to use.

Walter Hertel, a retired Munday city administrator, volunteered his time to help the water crew when they begin exercising the valves on the city water lines. He said at one time there was only one valve for the while city, which meant if there was a problem the whole city went without water. Things have improved over the years, but things still need to be kept up. Hertel also suggested that a line needs to be added to the administrator’s job description to include the upkeep of the city’s many valves.

Tammy Copeland and Gerry Brooks from the Community Action Program in Abilene introduced their Weatherization Assistance Program. Copeland said their organization can help with weatherizing homes of low income people to help lower their utility bills. She said it is possible for a couple making $18,000 or less to be funded up to 125 percent of the costs of weatherizing their home. They can be reached at 325-673-5785 extension 109.

Randy Beyers, of Jacobs and Martin Engineering, informed the council that Munday has been awarded three grants. Beyers serves as Munday’s waste water engineer and helps the city with grant applications and all the red tape the city has to process to stay in compliance. Two of the grants will go toward the installation of aerating equipment in all of our sewage ponds. The aerators stir up the water, allowing oxygen to come in which improves the mix and gets the plant in compliance with the state. Munday will receive $419,000 for this project. The City also received a 2010 grant to fund the on-site irrigation project. Under this grant the city can rent or purchase up to 160 acres for irrigation purposes. Another grant will help Munday with its planning for the next ten years.

The city also approved a resolution on grants that covers filing of an application for a grant, another one to cover filing and authorizing a representative and another one for an application affidavit.

A proclamation on partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau for an accurate count passed the council. The proclamation spells out the importance of having an accurate count. More than $300 billion a year is allocated to states and communities based on census data.

The council approved the formation of a Complete Count Committee for the 2010 census. However, the committee was not named.

The council appointed Exa Lee Martinez to be the Census Liaison person for Munday.

A Mayor’s proclamation declaring Munday a Litter Free Community was passed by the council. Persons caught littering in Munday will face stiff fines from now on.

For the second month the appointment of a new city judge was tabled. However, two names were mentioned as prospects. Mayor Norville will contact the two persons to see if either is interested.

City Administrator, Dwayne Bearden, informed the council that the city is losing almost $1,200 a month on its commercial garbage rates. For the 1.5-yard can, one time per week, the rate will be $40per month. A 3-yard can, one pickup a week will be $50 per month, 2 times a week the charge will be $95, and the 3 times a week charge will go to $145 a month. These rates will be effective with next month’s water bill.

The council also discussed noise and litter complaints which came out of the fourth of July celebrations. There is a distinct possibility that the council could over turn the present fireworks ordinance. One possibility would be to legalize the sale of fireworks within the city and designating certain places where fireworks could be used legally. Fireworks litter left in the streets or on the roadways will also the addressed.

Munday is a good place to live. So said some of the folks questioned by members of the city council. Another person likes the way the churches and people in general work together to get things done. A fisherman said he moved to Munday to be closer to Miller Creek Lake. One person said she enjoyed the downtown sidewalks for exercise. Another said the traffic in Munday is nice and no long lines at the grocery store. No one reported a negative comment about Munday, other than we need more people so we could get more stores and restaurants.

2009-07-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Anti-Litter Community

WHEREAS, we are fortunate to live in a City so abundantly blessed with natural assets and we have a continuing responsibility for preserving our environment by keeping it clean, healthy, and beautiful; and

WHEREAS, the Council of the City of Munday believes every citizen should contribute to keeping our environment clean and safe, by working together to preserve clean aire, fresh water and the natural beauty of our surroundings; and

WHEREAS, hundreds of citizens show their concern for the environment and their communities each year by participating in projects to clean up and rejuvenate local neighbourhoods, green spaces, vacant lots, illegal dump sites; and

WHEREAS, City of Munday volunteers believe that maintaining a quality environment and encouraging civic pride is everyone’s responsibility; and

WHEREAS, the City of Munday encourages voluntary action to keep our communitie clean and beautiful and restore and maintain a healthy environment.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT, on behalf of the Council of the City of Munday, Texas, I, Mayor Buddy Norville, do hereby proclaim Munday as a Litter-Free Community and call upon the citizens of Munday, the businesses, and other organizations to join and work together to improve and preserve the natural beauty of our city, and to participate throughout the year in beautification and litter prevention efforts.

WHEREAS, Munday being a Litter-Free Community will increase awareness of the need for a cleaner Munday, emphasize the importance of not littering, and encourage recycling of solid wastes; and

WHEREAS, this emphasis on cleanliness will be a part of educating the children of Munday regarding the importance of a clean environment to the quality of life in Munday.

Dated at the City of Munday this 14th day of July, 2009.

Buddy V. Norville
Mayor

2009-07-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Proclamation

Whereas, an accurate census count is vital to our community and residents’ well being by helping planners determine where to locate schools, day-care centers, roads and public transportation, hospitals and other facilities and is used to make decisions concerning business growth and housing need; and,

Whereas, more than $300 billion per year in federal funding is allocated to states and communities based on census data; and

Whereas, census data ensures fair Congressional representation by determining how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the redistricting of state legislatures, county and city council and voting districts; and

Whereas, the 2010 Census creates jobs that stimulate economic growth and increase employment growth and increase employment opportunities in our community.

Now, therefore, let it be known that:

I, Buddy Norville, by the virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Munday, Texas, do hereby proclaim that the City of Munday, Texas is committed to partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau to help ensure a full and accurate count in 2010 and encourage all citizens to participate in the 2010 Census count.

In testimony whereof, witness my hand and Seal of the City of Munday, Texas this the 14th day of July, 2009

Buddy Norville, Mayor

2009-07-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, 7-15-09

The invitation for someone, anyone, to bring fresh vegetables to market is still open, although it appears unlikely to happen. I think most people would rather give their produce away than get organized to bring it to market. That is not difficult to understand. Rest assured, we have not given up on the idea of a community garden, even if it is in different yards.

I’ve had a vision for Munday since I was 17. Munday would be the Garden Capital of Texas. The soil in Knox County will grow anything. Our farmers have proved over and over again that they could grow the best vegetables. Growing the produce has never been a problem. Marketing and harvesting have been the culprits in our garden kingdom. All we need is a lot of money to build our own canneries, our own marketing system, and a trucking line to deliver MunTex Produce all over the country. Naturally we would have our own organic gardens as well, there’s a huge market there. Soy beans, same thing.

Instead of giving up why don’t we put our heads together and think our way on top again. This is no time to be giving up, but to over come. There are solutions to every problem, all we need to do is work ‘em out. This country became great because men worked hard to find ways to do things that had never been done before. They found ways to cross wide rivers and deep canyons. They conquered disease and the depths of space. No one ever said we had to get it right the first time.

Thomas Edison was believed to have “invented” the electric light bulb. Actually he improved on a 50-year-old idea, the idea of electric lighting was not new. However, nothing had been developed that was practical for home use. After a year and a half of work Edison succeeded when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread burned for thirteen and a half hours. Edison stayed with his vision until the right idea came along.

In addition to inventing the right kind of filament that would make a light bulb work, Edison invented seven system elements that were critical to the practical application of electric lights: the parallel circuit, a durable light bulb, an improved underground conductor network, the devices for maintaining constant voltage, safety fuses and insulating materials, and light sockets with on-off switches.

I don’t know if anyone hasmore patents than Edison, he had 1,093 successful inventions. He also had a few that failed. He was a curious child and taught himself much by reading about things on his own. This belief in self-improvement stayed with him throughout his life.

Munday is loaded with talented, creative, curious people. Much of this talent and creative power has been forced to the back room of our minds while we made a living using our “other” knowledge. It’s time to open the door and let it come out to play and work and dream and build and do those things we have always wanted to do. There will be obstacles in our way. Let’s think our way around them, if we can’t go over them. There is nothing more powerful than the positive thought. But there is no place for negative thoughts like, “we can’t do that.” We may just need to do “it” different.

An inventor by the name of Thomas Adams first tried to change chicle into automobile tires before making it into chewing gum. Post-It Notes came about because of a screwed-up batch of glue that wouldn’t work as a glue. Paper towels came about when a batch of toilet paper came out too thick to use as toilet paper. Who knows what our mistakes could become. There may be another use for cotton that hasn’t been discovered. Or the careless weed, who knows.

It can be done and Munday has the people who can do it. Think it - see it - do it! Let’s find it and do it.

Market Munday every chance you get.

Plan now to be in Munday on July fourth next year, for the second annual Freedom Fest.

2009-07-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, 7-8-09

No one was disappointed in the First Annual Freedom Fest Parade. And it took a lot longer to line them up than it did to get downtown. I don’t know how many “floats” were in the parade, but quite a few. There were more than we had on the list. I want to thank everyone who found themselves in our parade. The huge tractors couldn’t be missed, but there were many smaller entries as well. We appreciate all those who rode on the various floats: the scouts, the veterans, the Lions, and the Little Miss contestants. If I missed one or some, I apologize.

The Mayor Mobile got too far behind and couldn’t catch up. I reckon the mayor needs to have a little mechanical surgery on his mower before next year, to spiff it up a few m.p.h. faster.

Thank you to all the folks who came out to watch the parade, and clean the streets of all that candy and ice cream. Thank you Lawrence Brother’s manager, Jay Haynie, for the ice cream, and cold drinks at the dance Saturday night. Someone commented that we could have had more people to watch the parade. It’s a trade off actually, considering how many folks were in the parade. Our folks made excellent use of the few shady spots along the route.

A special thanks to our own Police Department, David Petrusaitis and Ed Hunt for setting up the barricades and helping with the parade in general. AND to the Knox County Sheriff’s office for sending all their folks and vehicles, and I do mean ALL their folks. AND to Chief Harry Steen from the Knox City Police Department. AND to TX Dot for the permit and for the barricades. We couldn’t have done without their help, so thank then again when you see them around town, or the county.

Yes, we had a dance Saturday night, at the Downtown Park. And yes, it rained. When I arrived on the scene the broom brigade was removing water from the dance floor. For a few minutes everyone enjoyed a reprieve from the rain while several took to the floor.

Except for the rain, the dance was a success. If it takes scheduling a dance to get some rain around here, we will do that more often. But we Baptists don’t believe in rain dancing. But if what we did fits the bill....do it again.

Before I forget, the Little Miss Pageant was a great night of fun for a lot of folks and several little girls. These nine girls gained a lot of experience in their first quest for the crown. The pageant was another first for Munday. We will do it again, maybe a little different though. Next time we will open it up to the grandmothers as well. Why? Well, why not?

The Munday fire boys had barbecue sandwiches and hot dogs at the park for lunch. Quite a few people gathered under the pavilion to chat and chomp.

The Farmer’s Market was absent, again. However, there were two venders in the Downtown Park: selling burritos and Doggy Treats. Mary Ann’s burritos are always good, but I didn’t try one of Cynthia’s dog cookies. On the City Hall lawn was the Church of Christ women with cold tea and lemonade. For all the nay-sayers and non-goers, these three venders drew quite a crowd. Correction: four venders, well not exactly venders. Todd Wilson had some kittens, well, he was offering anyone a dollar to take them off his hands. Sorry Todd, you just never know when you’re gonna make the news.

As I was saying, if three venders could attract 50 people, how many could 50 venders attract. No algebra here, this is a myth-a-matical question. Everyone within 100 miles of Munday is starved for entertainment. But we all think there is no entertainment. Television certainly isn’t entertainment anymore. We still end up at home, where we complain at our spouses, or our pets. If we have neither, we howl at the moon. That presents us with an idea: a Moon Howling contest, on the nights of every full moon. Or, if you live near water, you can go on a moonlight swim.

Everyone who doesn’t get out on Saturady morning to set up a table of vegetables, or bakeware, or anything, is missing out on a lot of fun and blessings. Of course its hot, this is Texas in July, it’s supposed to be hot. Just never mind the heat, put on a straw hat and come on out.

The fourth of July weekend was great. We can’t have a parade every week, but we can make every week a good time. Work with me please, and let’s dream up creative and exciting things to do on our weekends in Munday. I’m suggesting a domino tournament to start with. Whose time is to shuffle?

We’ve got something started, let’s keep it going. And don’t forget to Market Munday.

2009-07-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Depressed Southern Small Town Economy
Posted in: Ideas by Michael on 12/07/08.

I wrote this as an email to a good friend of mine shortly after I returned from a 3 week family road road trip. I've tweaked it for public consumption, but for the most part remains the same.

We traveled through 13 states (4,500 miles) to see family and just spend some time together. It was an eye opener. I saw more of the country than many people will in their lifetimes. It was particularly interesting because of the current economy of course, the impact of which was more evident on the southern leg of our trip.

When I was about 7, I lived in a small town on the Mississippi called Helena, Arkansas. I've been back many times since, and have watched it decline from the prosperous farming town it once was, to a town with a 24 hour curfew in a certain section.

I've spent many an hour thinking through the reasons for this decline, and what follows are my thoughts. It is a long read, but I wanted to get these thoughts out here. I offer thoughts on a potential first step to solution at the end.

If you have comments or thoughts, please leave them. I'd love to open a dialog on this and see what others are thinking.

My thoughts on why small town economies are depressed - in no particular order.

Walmart - Money spent at Walmart goes to Bentonville, AR, and doesn't circulate locally. Within the township, any number of shops existed where Walmart now thrives - from drug stores, to hardware, electronics, and grocery stores. Each of those businesses employed people, which provided real money for the economy. Even the trucking infrastructure is privately operated.

In larger areas, Walmart is just one of many common big box stores. They don't displace smaller shops where smaller shops have never existed - think suburbia and sprawl. But in small towns they're simply devastating.

Farming subsidies - I don't know the exact history of this yet, but based on what I do know, the local farmers have essentially shut down operations instead choosing to take hand-outs from the government. They used to provide jobs and revenue - again for the local community. Sure, the farmers are OK, but the workers are not.

Welfare - Much like metro communities, welfare has become a way of life - instead of being the help that was needed in crisis. Children that are born to a family receiving welfare are more likely to continue to rely on welfare as they become adults. It is what they know, and are provided little incentive to change it.

Apathy - "This is the way it has always been, and I can't change it, so be it. We get along." Simple things like trash along the roads, to collapsing structures, to seeing people do the wrong thing while silently standing in fear - all contribute to an unremarkable living experience.

Dignity - The vast majority of these people are good, hard working people that simply have nothing to do and nowhere to work. Churches help maintain a positive social structure. They have family and I think ultimately want better for them. But given the struggling economy and the reality of their current situations, they struggle with their pride and dignity - many do things they're not proud of.

Casinos - People go to these places for entertainment, but how many are hoping to win big to solve their financial problems? Even people that don't work will find a way in to these places in hopes of winning big. Money spent in the casinos doesn't stay in the community, it goes to a corporate office in another state. Sure there are jobs, but there aren't nearly enough to support a town of 14,000. Some of the revenue also goes to the state, but the state clearly isn't investing it back in to the communities from which it originated.

Drugs - Of course there are drugs. Drugs are the way a select set of people are hoping to survive or maybe even better. Drugs are escapism at the core, but the damage it causes to a small community is devastating. From increased budgetary considerations (law enforcement, etc.), to violence, crime, unsanitary conditions, etc.

Consumerism - As we drove through Mississippi, it was interesting to see a pimped out car in front of a building with a collapsing roof. I believe that advertising and lifestyle, while not problems unique to these communities, contributes more here. Kids want to make money to buy things that give them a certain appearance. I've been there and done that and get it, but I no longer have that desire. I wonder how one can discourage that in a younger generation. How can you teach the 4 year olds in the town to spend responsibly? How can you show a high schooler that earning money to support his family is a far better thing than having that pair of $150 shoes?

While these are huge issues to tackle, I believe that as a part of a grand plan they can all be addressed.

Imagine a scenario where a message is sent to the Obama volunteers of one of these towns. The message simply directs the recipients to post flyers inviting everyone that reads the flyer to a general town meeting (we even provide the flyers). The meeting's organizers are simply listening to the needs and desires of those that show up. You know by the fact that these people are in the room, that they are there to affect change. Real change. You'll also know exactly what they need - and while it may not be possible to address everything, you will know what the hot items are.

City leaders would be invited, but are not encouraged to come. My view on this is that the leadership of these towns are the very people that are responsible for the current conditions. The casinos possibly paying leadership under the table, Walmart affecting the town by proxy, etc. Even if it isn't true, it will be the perception of the people that may want to come. Eventually the two can come together.

We could provide a simple set of directives for those that show up... go out on a weekend and pick up the trash along a main road. Find a few structures that need to be dismantled in order to clean up a street. Provide some really basic stuff to see if, and how they respond. We'd build a real community - not based on the boundaries of a township, but based on participation, pride and the genuine sense of accomplishment.

This is the way you free yourself from debt, or lose weight. One small step at a time. Anything that fixes the problem quickly will fail as it doesn't fix the problem... it fixes the result of the problem.

It turns out that while we lived in Helena, my father Bob tried to convince the cities that this was coming. The city governments were more concerned about maintaining their power than providing the residents with a plan for the future. I knew he was involved in "The Great Debate" but I never knew what it truly meant.

What do you think?

Editor's Note: I'd like to know what people think about small town apathy. I've been reading about apathy in hopes to find some help. I believe there's a lot more involved than we think, and the problem didn't start with us. But it involves things like Michael in his "email" to a friend and more. the drugs-part plays a role in Munday, and every small town. I think drugs have affected the morality and the morale of our community. Many folks do not see the problem, or do not want to see the problem. Others have grown up with it and apparantly think there is nothing we can do about it. Others have been threatened NOT to do anything about it. To get our town back we are abligated to do soomething about the current drug problem in Munday, no matter who or how many go down. When/if we get to the roots of the problem some of us will be shocked to learn who has been in charge all the time. Put Munday high up on your prayer list, and pray often.

2009-06-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Office of the Mayor of Munday, Texas

July 1, 2009

Dear Munday Citizen,
In my weekly column “Inside City Hall” in the Munday Courier I have asked for citizen input. I have received no input. I realize that everyone doesn’t read the Courier, so I am trying the direct mail approach with this letter.

I need to hear from the citizens of Munday: to know how the city is doing for you. People can have concerns but hesitate to say anything because they don’t think it would do any good. One thing is certain, no one can be helped if the city doesn’t know what the needs are. We want to hear from the citizens of Munday.

Now then, I would like to do something new: a citizen’s advisory council. At one time Munday operated on the alderman/ward system of representation. Different areas of town were represented on the city council. Today our council members are all elected at large. That doesn’t mean that any area of town is not represented. Not at all.

I would like to divide the city into four or six areas and appoint at least two people from each area. I would also like to appoint three people from the group of business owners who may live outside the city limits. That would give us a council of around 15 people to advise the mayor and city council on all sorts of things.

What do I need from you? Names. I need for you to give me names of those you think would be good for your area of town. These people do not need prior experience on the city council. They need to be people who love Munday and want to see it prosper. We need people who think for themselves, who are not puppets of someone else. We need people who are not afraid to speak up in a group setting.

This council will be different from anything anyone has seen before in Munday. I guarantee it. It won’t be a power thing, no one on the advisory council will have a vote at city council. But they will have input. This council will meet once a month, no boxing gloves allowed either.

At the meetings we will talk about every concern raised from every area of town. If anyone has a vision for Munday, we will certainly hear that.

This is your opportunity to be in on something that can make a difference in Munday. Remember, it takes the whole village to raise up a good mayor. I want to be your good mayor. This is my hometown, I’m proud of it, I love it and I want to see it become again like it was when I was growing up here. Really I want to see it become better.

Sincerely,

Buddy (Bunny) Norville

2009-06-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, 7-1-09

The Munday Farmer’s Market got underway last Saturday morning. Clarence and Etta Searcy became the first gardeners to bring their produce to market. I tip my black-eyed pea basket to the Searcys. It was a brave move on their part to step out and be the first. It was also a big move. The garden gate is open, let the produce flow through the gates of Munday.

Who will come out and join us before and after the parade? This weekend will be a great time to have produce to sell. Mark my word, there will be a crowd in town for the parade. It doesn’t matter if you only have a little to bring, your presence will mean a lot to the Farmer’s Market idea. Remember, this is the beginning of something that will become big. So, think big, even if you have a little. The Farmer’s Market in Las Angeles began with one man and his pickup and homegrown vegetables and today it is huge. I imagine the one in Dallas started the same way. The one in Munday has started the same way: Clarence and Etta took a huge step forward for all of us. Thank you Clarence and Etta.

I hope you have noticed how the parade fever has struck in Munday. Every where I go I hear people talking about their float or another one. This kind of excitement has been missing in Munday for too long. So let’s fan the breeze and work it up to hurricane pitch, then hold on for the ride.

In just the past week I have been introduced to some great ideas, some big dreams for Munday. In time we will share these ideas and ask for input on how to accomplish them. They are all too big for one person to accomplish, so we need partners who are ready to jump on board and go with the flow. Let’s get back on track and back to the future.

With this edition I would like to introduce the Mayor’s “Atta Boy Honor Roll”, and the idea of “volunteerism”. I am aware of certain individuals who have given themselves to Munday in big blocks of time and energy. In the weeks ahead I will be recognizing these folks and naming them to the Honor Roll. The Munday Courier will also recognize them by running a story and photo of each honoree. These are people who have the volunteer spirit and a love for Munday with a desire to see Munday look good and be good.

So before we even begin naming names I’m asking you, the public, for suggestions and nominations for future honorees. We want to recognize everyone who has this spirit and this love for Munday. These people do not mind working, sweating, freezing, whatever it takes to put Munday ahead. You know someone like this, so let us hear from you, write to us at Honor Roll, Drawer 39, Munday, TX 76371.

These folks would never ask to be included in something like this. In fact, some of them will be embarrassed. But some of them have been doing things for this city for years and have never been recognized for their work. It’s time we honored them, this is only a token of what they deserve.

In the weeks and months ahead we will be working on a master list of volunteer projects in Munday. This will be a list of things that just don’t get done around town. There’s a lot of things that fall under the city’s jurisdiction that are way down on the list. Well, a lot of them never get done. They are things that volunteers can do. I’m asking you to put aside ideas that are so prevalent around town: things like “why should someone have to volunteer to do things that the city boys are paid to do?” If you think that way, we don’t want you on our volunteer team. You would be like a rotten apple in the bag, and your spirit would spoil the whole bag. We need to change the way we think and the way we talk. We is me, and we is you. Think about it and take it to heart. Put Munday first.

Market Munday every chance you get.

2009-06-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

The class of 1959 as they look in 2009

2009-06-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

2009-06-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Munday classes celebrate 50-51-year reunion

The Munday High School classes of ‘58 and ‘59 reunited over the past weekend in Wichita Falls. The class of ‘58 counted 14 former classmates and 23 represented the class of ‘59. Several spouses came along to see if their mates really did, in fact, graduate from Mogul High School.

Several exes who for one reason or another did not graduate with the core classes came out for this occasion. It was the 51st and 50th reunions for the classes. Everyone had a great time guessing the identities of others as they came through the door. Someone lamented, “What are we going to look like in another 50 years?” As the group picture shows, the classes of ‘58 and ‘59 are a nice-looking bunch.

The whole group spent several hours just getting reacquainted and making discoveries at every table. This was not a cookie-cutter batch of graduates. One had built an aerospace company, another had his Ph.D.. There were nurses, policemen, farmers, missionaries, career military people, real estate people, housewives, and many other careers represented. There was not a dunce in either class. Never was.

Highlighting the entire weekend was the auction on Saturday evening. Newly-elected class president, Gaylon Allred, acted as the auctioneer. Allred, a retired bank executive, treated each piece as a work of art mounted in solid gold. As a result every item sold for a lot more than it was worth, bringing in over $1,500 for the next class reunion in two years.

One of the items had sentimental value to one person: A name plate that had formerly indicated the residence of Staff Sergeant David Rister at Carswell A.F.B. housing. At some time in the intervening years the name plate came to Munday came to rest at the home of David’s parents. Somehow the plate fell to the floor and eventually worked its way beneath the house, where it stayed for several years. A year or so ago it showed up. Dorothy Myers moved in next door to the, by this time dilapidated house. As the floor was being removed, there it was, laying in the dirt as good as new.

Recently Dorothy gave the sign to Jackie Lowrance in hopes she could return it to David. Imagine the look on David’s face when he saw the sign among the items to be sold at auction. The weekend was in fact a re-union of the sign and David. It was a great weekend for all.

2009-06-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

2009-06-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, 6-24-09

Munday will have a Farmer’s Market. Maybe not this month, but it will happen. Gardeners, farmers, plumbers, builders, bring forth your produce. Please. There is plenty of space around the square. First one there gets the shade.

Thursday evening at the Church of Christ the Community Garden/Farmer’s Market Council will meet at 7 p.m. There is always something interesting to talk about. So come on out and join in.

Everyone loves a parade, especially on the Fourth of July. Munday folks are putting together a colossal and colorful collection of entries. I asked the Air Force Chief of Staff if he could arrange a flyover of the Thunderbirds at 10:00. He was sort of noncommittal, but he will try. Who knows, maybe they will airdrop a shipment of fresh produce from Maryland. Don’t hold your breath.

Did you know the first parade floats were decorated barges towed along canals with ropes held by parade marchers on the shore? Now you know where the name came from. Floats were occasionally propelled from within by concealed oarsmen, but the practice was abandoned because of the high incidence of drowning when the lightweight and unstable frames capsized. Strikingly, among the first uses of grounded floats, towed by horses, was a ceremony in memory of recently drowned parade oarsmen.

No barges afloat here, but there will be all kinds of vehicles and animals in our parade. It is rumored that the mayor has an entry and will be pulling a custom-made trailer. This we gotta see.

If you haven’t entered your barge do so soon at the chamber office. Decorate them something along the lines of Freedom Fest, since this is an Independence Day Parade. Display the colors with pride: WE ARE AMERICANS! And we are proud of it. If you are not, stay at home. Better yet, leave the country.

Don’t forget to enter your little miss in the pageant, too. I’m sure there will be more about it in the Courier.

These events are small steps forward. Old Japanese proverb say, “Journey of a thousand miles begin with first step (forward).” We are not planning a destination, an end to our planning. We will build one step, then build on that step, with no end in sight. We keep building, and enjoying the journey.

This kind of journey requires people of vision, dreamers, those who think outside the box. There are many people stuck in their little boxes who want out, but don’t know how to get out. It’s as easy as changing the way they think. Remember the little steam engine who said, “I think I can, I think I can . . .” I have watched people react to a request to do something out-of-the ordinary. Without thinking they will say, “Oh, I can’t do that.”

If I come to your house with a match and say, “I’m going to burn your house down.” How would you react? Probably you would say, “Like hell you are!” At least I hope you would react that way. Listen, our homes are in danger. Our town is in danger of disappearing. And if we don’t get out of our boxes and start thinking of ways of save our town, our society, and our culture we will be moving to Dallas or some other city. We have a much better life in Munday than we ever would in a big city.

There are those who say it is inevitable, towns like Munday are fading away. People who say those things are paid to think that way. These are the same people who could think of ways to save our small towns, but they would have to change the way they think. They only bet on sure things: small towns must die. Don’t believe a word of it. We the people control our own destiny: and we will not allow Munday to die.

If you look fast you can see Richard Albus and Steven Smith zipping around town on two shiny, new John Deere lawn mowers. Keeping Munday Beautiful bought one of the mowers and the other one was a gift to Munday. Albus and Smith voluntarily mow many lots and yards around town. They could use some other volunteer help: cleaning debris off the lots before they mow and following after them with weed eaters. The pay is the same, but these guys will not give up the Deeres: you could say they are attached to the mowers, as in joined at the hip.

2009-06-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

2009-06-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Obamacare horror story you won't hearMichelle Malkin -

By Michelle Malkin, Syndicated Columnist - 6/19/2009

The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading healthcare sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there's one healthcare policy nightmare you won't hear the Obamas hyping. It's a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago -- with first lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints all over it.

Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois have raised red flags about the outsourcing program run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has nonprofit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care.

Yet, in fiscal year 2007, when Mrs. Obama was employed there, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor -- 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.

Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: "Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds."

Don't expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an "Urban Health Initiative," Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to "dramatically improve healthcare for thousands of South Side residents."

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming "RAAAAAAAAACISM!" at the top of their lungs.

Joe Stephens of The Washington Post wrote, "To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Axelrod's firm (ASK Public Strategies) recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign -- appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party 'validators.' They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications."

Some healthcare experts saw through Mrs. Obama and PR man Axelrod -- yes, the same Axelrod who is now President Obama's senior adviser. But the University of Chicago Medical Center hired ASK Public Strategies to promote Mrs. Obama's initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett -- now a White House senior adviser.

Axelrod's great contribution: re-branding! His firm recommended renaming the initiative after "internal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word 'urban' is code for 'black' or 'black and poor.' ...Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative." Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.

In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas' community exploded upon learning that a young boy covered by Medicaid had been turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams' mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama's hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics and Tylenol, and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.

I'll guarantee you this: You'll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the first lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the healthcare system.

Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Axelrod's grand plan. The group released a statement expressing "grave concerns that the University of Chicago's policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to 'patient dumping,' a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)" -- signed by President Reagan, by the way -- "and reflected an effort to 'cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor."

Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

2009-06-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

The science of sex

Marcia Segelstein - Guest Columnist - 6/16/2009

Thanks to medical science, we now know that smoking cigarettes is unhealthy. It can lead to diseases like emphysema and lung cancer, and increase the risks of heart disease and stroke. So we have acted swiftly on that information. In one generation, our attitude about smoking has undergone a remarkable transformation. Where smoking was once commonplace, and homes everywhere had ashtrays, even if only for visiting smokers, today it's almost shocking to see someone light up. Banned from airplanes, offices and many restaurants, smoking – and smokers – are viewed with a kind of disdain at worst, pity at best. TV shows and movies rarely show people smoking, except when they're villains. The dangers of smoking are taught to young people with almost religious zeal. Most modern parents who found evidence that their teenagers were smoking would haul them down to the nearest cancer ward for a close up look at the consequences of smoking, or at least to their doctor, who would undoubtedly back up parental warnings that smoking is dangerous to their health.

Now substitute the words "casual sex" for "smoking."

Thanks to medical science, we now know that casual sex is unhealthy.

Not just because of the myriad of sexually transmitted diseases it can cause, to say nothing of the unwanted pregnancies it can create, but because of what it does to the human brain.

Two doctors, Joe McIlhaney and Freda McKissic Bush, explain what we now know about sex and the human brain in their book, Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children. [See editor's note below]

Let's start with the brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is considered a "reward signal." We now know that when humans do exciting and rewarding things, dopamine floods the brain, producing a feeling of well-being. As the authors write: "It is dopamine that gives us a charge of excitement and rewards us for having the courage to take an action with an uncertain outcome....It should be noted, however, that dopamine is values-neutral. In other words, it is an involuntary response that cannot tell right from wrong, or beneficial from harmful – it rewards all kinds of behavior without distinction."

Dopamine can make adolescents feel good about taking both good and bad risks, from being in the high school musical or trying out for a sports team to driving too fast or having sex. Any exciting behavior triggers the release of dopamine, and adolescents in particular want more once they've had some.

Oxytocin is another important brain chemical we are now learning more about. Oxytocin helps females, in particular, bond with other people. When a new mother breastfeeds her infant, for example, oxytocin floods her brain. The effect is powerful. She feels a strong desire to be with her baby, and is willing to suffer the sleepless nights and inconveniences that come with having a baby.

Oxytocin also helps females bond with men. When a woman and man touch each other in a loving way, oxytocin is released in her brain. It makes her want more of that loving touch, and she begins to feel a bond with her partner. Sexual intercourse leads to the release of even more oxytocin, a desire to repeat the contact, and even stronger bonding. But, like dopamine, oxytocin is values-neutral. It's a chemical reaction, or, as the authors write: "[I]t is an involuntary process that cannot distinguish between a one-night stand and a lifelong soul mate. Oxytocin can cause a woman to bond to a man even during what was expected to be a short-term sexual relationship." So when that short-term relationship ends, the emotional fallout can be devastating, thanks to oxytocin.

Another significant finding about oxytocin is that it produces feelings of trust. That can be good or bad, depending on the situation. "While the hormonal effect of oxytocin is ideal for marriage, it can cause problems for the unmarried woman or girl who is approached by a man desiring sex....[T]he warning is that a woman's brain can cause her to be blindsided by a bad relationship that she thought was good because of the physical contact and the oxytocin response it generates."

Males have their own neurochemical related to bonding: vasopressin. It floods the male brain during sexual intercourse, causing him to feel at least partially bonded to every woman with whom he's been intimate. If men begin a pattern of having sex with partner after partner, they risk not developing the ability to form long-term emotional attachment. As McIlhaney and Bush put it: "Their inability to bond after multiple liaisons is almost like tape that loses its stickiness after being applied and removed multiple times."

Now let's add to that new information that neuroscience teaches us about the brain chemistry of sex and bonding some cold, hard facts about how effective birth control really is when it comes to teenagers. The authors of Hooked have compiled the following statistics from various sources:

- 20 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds using the Pill will become pregnant within six months
- 20 percent of teens under 18 using condoms will become pregnant within a year
- 50 percent of female teenagers who live with a boyfriend and use contraception will become pregnant within a year

I recently watched a rerun of House (a TV show about a doctor who uses unconventional methods to diagnose illnesses) and was struck by a brief interaction between the doctor and the parents of the teenage patient, who couldn't speak for himself. The parents assured Dr. House that they knew everything about their son. They were non-judgmental, they explained. The son told them everything. They knew about the time he'd gotten drunk, that he smoked pot, and that he started having sex when he was 16. They were cool. Later House discovers irrefutable proof that the son smokes cigarettes, an activity which turns out to be germane to his illness. When House brings it up with the parents, their reaction verges on hysteria. "But he knows I'd kill him," the father screams.

For those of us unconvinced by moral or religious arguments, it's time to re-order our priorities. Now that we have science behind us, it's time for society to change its collective mind when it comes to sex, just as it did with smoking. Maybe in one generation, we can undergo a transformation when it comes to sex outside of marriage. Maybe TV shows and movies will stop implying that casual sex is no big deal. Maybe we'll begin to teach young people that waiting till marriage is best. Then the dopamine and the oxytocin and the vasopressin can do their jobs of helping to make two people one.

We don't expect our kids to take up smoking. We tell them so in no uncertain terms. We should expect no less when it comes to sex, and we should tell them that also.

The authors of Hooked sum up their findings about premarital sex this way: "[T]hose who abstain from sex until marriage significantly add to their chance for avoiding problems and finding happiness."

Science now backs up what religious traditions have been teaching for generations. Who knew?

Oh yeah. Him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note: Authors Joe McIlhaney and Freda McKissic Bush are on the board of directors of The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, an organization that was founded to study the science involved with the sexual behavior of adolescents and young adults.

2009-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

Obama fast-tracking the nanny state
by Star Parker - Syndicated Columnist - 6/15/2009

President Obama wants healthcare reform this year.

He said at a town hall meeting the other day that he won't tolerate "endless delay" and that we probably won't reform healthcare if we don't do it this year.

Now why is that Mr. President? Will Congress be on vacation for the remaining three years of your term?

Consider that it's not unusual to take a full session of Congress -- two years -- to pass legislation a fraction of the size and consequence of healthcare reform. Yet our president is demanding that a bill to overhaul a $2.5 trillion sector of our economy -- one sixth of it -- be considered and passed in a few short weeks.

It ought to be clear that this is not about taking an honest and sincere look at how to make this a better country and how to do a better job at delivering healthcare to Americans. It's impossible to look at something this massive and deal with it in such a short time frame.

This is about raw politics. When Mr. Obama says that if we don't get "it" done this year we probably won't get "it" done, he doesn't mean reforming healthcare. He means reforming it the way he and Ted Kennedy want to do it. Government-run, nanny state healthcare.

To pull it off, they have to move fast.

First, the White House knows that Mr. Obama's honeymoon won't last forever. While his personal approval ratings remain high at 60 percent, his disapproval rating now at 33 percent is almost twice where is stood last February. And, in latest Gallup polling, the majority now disapprove of how Obama is handling government spending. So the White House wants action now on healthcare while their man is still popular.

Second, the White House knows that next year is an election year. It will be far more difficult to get senators and congressmen to play ball.

Third, they know that the big reason that Hillary Care failed in 1993 was that the American people were given an opportunity to look at it and consider it. They don't want to make the same mistake of giving voters a chance to actually understand what is about to happen to them. They know that the more Americans have an opportunity to take a look at the bureaucrat-run, nanny state healthcare freight train, the more likely they will jump of the track.

Breathlessness is a great political technique. Telling voters that the world will end if we don't get X passed now.

This is how the $800 billion dollar "stimulus" bill got passed earlier this year. We were flashed images of the Great Depression of the 1930s and told our only hope is the stimulus bill.

Now, three months later, it's clear that our current economy bears no resemblance to the 1930s, that signs of recovery are emerging, and thus far only six percent of the $800 billion "stimulus" pot of political lard has been spent.

The trillions in new debt have been piled up at such a dizzying pace in the last few months Americans are numb. The federal government take from our economy has jumped from one-fifth of it to one-fourth.

Now, Mr. Obama and his Democrat colleagues want to layer on a new government healthcare plan to "compete" with private plans. "Compete" means raising taxes a few trillion dollars to provide subsidized insurance, and in some cases, free insurance, through a government plan in which all Americans will eventually wind up -- and putting federal bureaucrats in charge of approving what healthcare procedures we are permitted.

The healthcare nanny state freight train is moving. Will we wake up before it's too late?

2009-06-15T09:25:00.001-07:00

inside city hall, 6-17-09

Yes, it was hot. No, there were no vegetables. Neither could be helped. We tried, but sometimes our efforts fall short. We have no control over the weather, or the plants that grow the vegetables. They just weren’t ready to let go of their pride.

The challenge is still out there for next week, IF anyone has fresh vegetables, please bring them to town. There is plenty of space around the square, and if you get there early you can have your pick of the shady spots. It was comfortable in the shade for most of this morning. Many people asked about the Farmer’s Market, they were expecting to see vegetables there, maybe next week. I hope so.

There were fresh flowers in front of city hall: Jim Dillon brought a trailer load. They must have been in demand, because Jim was soon gone. Thank you Jim for coming over to help celebrate Munday.

I counted 13 different sales going on downtown, I couldn’t count all the different ones going on out in the neighborhoods. There were some large ones and several smaller sales going on. I passed through Longhorn country on my travels on the west side. A special thanks to everyone who set up a sale. You all deserve a gold medal.

Someone asked me Saturday evening how I felt about the day. It was encouraging, really. People acted like they were genuinely happy to see each other. I was especially happy to see the out-of-towners treated like homefolk. Burkburnet isn’t that far away: Those folks will be back in September, maybe even July 4th for our parade. I felt a fall spirit in the air Saturday morning, just a hint of a cool breeze and people swapping smiles all over the place. It was beautiful.

My first month as mayor has been encouraging. The city council meeting was smooth: everyone did a great job of participating, asking questions and making motions. It was a pleasure to chair this meeting. I believe we will do a good job for Munday and have fun doing it. If ya’ll have a chance to talk to any of us on the council, tell us what you like about Munday. If there’s something you don’t like, tell us anyway. But, tell us how you think it could be improved. Please don’t tell us, “I don’t like so-and-so,” and then hush. Tell us what’s missing. We honestly need to know what you think.

The Keeping Munday Beautiful meeting Thursday evening was lively, maybe even a little exciting. People were stiff-arming others just so they could volunteer to serve, to help keep Munday moving ahead. I say again, it was encouraging. Folks it won’t be long until we will have a first rate production in that little rock church. Things are moving ahead with more steam than a month ago. Call 422-4438 and ask how you can plug in to some of this excitement. Watch out for the stiff arm though.

Karen Longan, director of Keeping Munday Beautiful and Artistic Director for the Old Rock Church Playhouse announced that the first production will be at the Downtown Park July 25. The play Sylvia will be inacted by the Playhouse players. (All of these names stand to be corrected.)

Keeping Munday Beautiful has accepted the responsibility of cleaning around the 277 overpass. There are four quadrants, or corners, to clean. Three out of the four have been taken on by different individuals or groups. One hasn’t: it’s first come, so step up and take it on. TXDOT contractors are supposed to clean the actual roadside. I did say supposed to, didn’t I.

Market Munday every chance you get.

2009-06-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton: U.S. no longer dominated by Christians and JewsChristine Simmons - Associated Press Writer - 6/14/2009 5:55:00 AM

WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton has told an Arab-American audience of 1,000 people that the U.S. is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is dominated by Christians and a powerful Jewish minority

In a speech to the group on Saturday, Clinton said that given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here, Americans should be mindful of the nation's changing demographics, which led to the election of Barack Obama as president.

Clinton said by 2050 the U.S. will no longer have a majority of people with European heritage and that in an interdependent world "this is a very positive thing."

Speaking in a hotel ballroom to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee during its annual convention, Clinton also praised Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt, that was focused on the Arab world.

Clinton told the audience that it's important that they push government leaders for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He cited an experience in 1993 when he failed to persuade many Jewish-American and Arab-American business people to invest in the Palestinian areas because violence and bombings had deterred them.

"It just took one more bus bomb or one more rocket or one more incident and then people got scared of losing their money," he said.

As the U.S. continues to push for peace in the area, "I think it's really important to give the Palestinian people something to look forward to," Clinton said to loud applause.

Clinton, who wasn't paid for his speech, spoke in a wide-ranging 35-minute address that focused on people's identity in an interdependent world. He said the U.S. can't rely on its military might in global relations. "It has to begin by people accepting the fact that they can be proud of who they are without despising who someone else is," he said.

************************************************8
We know Bill Clinton was never baptized in the blood of Jesus. And now we can see further where his heart lies: at the feet of the blood sucking globalists, of which our A-rab president is tribal chief. Pray for America.

2009-06-10T19:29:00.001-07:00

2009-06-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

2009-06-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

Is it Allah Obama?

Column by Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries

President Obama’s comment to French television on June 1 that the United States is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” plus his Islam-praising speech in Cairo, Egypt on June 4, raise anew questions about his own faith and how he views America.

Questions can also be asked about his math. The CIA Factbook estimates America’s Muslim population at 0.6 percent, or about 1.8 million, which puts it in 58th place among nations’ total Muslim populations. Even if you take the Islamic Information Center’s high estimate of 8 million, that still puts the U.S. at 29th out of 60 nations.

In Cairo, Obama quoted from the Koran, used his middle name of Hussein, and indicated that the United States and Muslim nations have the same commitment to tolerance and freedom. To fathom the absurdity, think about the possibility of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution springing from the pens of Islamic scholars Thomas al-Jefferson and James al-Madison.

Over the past three years, Obama has made it his business to insist that “we are no longer a Christian nation.” He has said it in many places, here and abroad. In 2006, in Washington, D.C., he said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. At least, not just.” He posted the same sentiment on his campaign website.

At the Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania on April 13, 2008, he said, “We are not just a Christian nation. We are a Jewish nation; we are a Buddhist nation; we are a Muslim nation; Hindu nation; and we are a nation of atheists and nonbelievers.”

In Turkey, at a press conference on April 10, he said: “Although we have a large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. I think modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of values.”

During the presidential campaign, the media pounced on anyone who inquired into Obama’s Muslim upbringing in Indonesia, his two Muslim fathers or his later 20-year attendance at radical pastor Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Now, his Muslim roots are touted as an asset.

No one can say for sure what Obama actually believes, since only God can know the human heart. So we are left examining his words and actions.

The media-enforced line for the past three years has been that he is a self-described mainstream Christian, end of story. Even when Obama badly distorted Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount into a clarion call to accept homosexuality, the press yawned. They yawned (or cheered) when he mocked the Bible’s relevance for politics in that 2006 Washington, D.C. speech:

“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith, or should we just stick with the Sermon on the Mount, a passage which is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application. Folks haven’t been reading the Bible.”

More cheers came when he spoke the language of unity while taking a shot at his political opponents during a speech at the United Church of Christ convention in 2007:

“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us.

“We can recognize the truth that's at the heart of the UCC: that the conversation is not over [God needs an editor]; that our roles are not defined [men in dresses, unite]; that through ancient texts and modern voices, God is still speaking [yes, we’re ripping out pages of the Bible daily to suit our appetites], challenging us to change not just our own lives, but the world around us …hate has no place in the hearts of believers.”

Is it not hateful to suggest that people who disagree with you are full of “hate?” Is it unifying to accuse opponents of inventing fights that they didn’t start?

More odd things have been happening since Obama’s election that should give pause to even the most cynical observers.

On the Saturday before Obama’s swearing-in, V. Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, gave an invocation at a pre-inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial. The New York Times interviewed him beforehand:

“Bishop Robinson said he had been rereading inaugural prayers through history and was ‘horrified’ at how ‘specifically and aggressively Christian they were.’ Bishop Robinson said, ‘I am very clear that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.’”

As one of his first judicial appointments, Obama named Indiana federal judge David Hamilton to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton, who had ruled that a pastor could not invoke the name of Jesus in an opening prayer for the Indiana legislature, said that, on the other hand, invoking Allah at a public event is fine.

In April, it was reported that Obama appointed Harry Knox, a Catholic-bashing homosexual activist, to the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Knox, who directs the religion program at the largest gay pressure group, the Human Rights Campaign, described Pope Benedict and other Catholic clergy as “discredited leaders” because of their stand for traditional marriage, and called the Knights of Columbus “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” because of their support of California’s Proposition 8 marriage amendment.

On April 14, 2009, the Obama team had Georgetown University cover up the Greek letters IHS, which stand for Jesus, so they would not show up when he spoke in front of them.

On May 7, Obama declined to hold any White House event to mark the National Day of Prayer, a decision hailed by Barry Lynn’s hard left Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

In his eloquent commencement speech at Notre Dame on May 17, Obama sounded a conciliatory note, lamented, sort of, the abortions that he wants taxpayers to fund, and gave more clues that Christianity will move over and shrink before a universalist moral relativism:

“The size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake [not “reform” or “restore,” but “remake”] our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age.

“Your generation must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it….. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity -- diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.”

If diversity in and of itself is god, where does that leave Jesus Christ – the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Alpha and the Omega, the Way, the Truth and the Life, through Whom all things were created?

Well, the Obama Nation might just ask Him to change his name to … Allah.

2009-06-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, 6-10-09

The annual Munday City-Wide Garage Sale is Saturday, June 13. That’s this week for those who don’t have a calendar watch.

If you have put every thing off until now, get busy, get your junk and stuff out of the attic or storage and slap some cheap prices on it and consider it ready for the garage sale. The Chamber of Commerce is serious about the date, time and event, but let’s just be silly as all get out and have some fun. Visit everyone’s sale and see how much more stuff you can accumulate in a few hours.

For those who don’t have enough for a sale of their own, just load it up and donate it to the Chamber or to a neighbor of choice. At any rate it’s time to unload everything you haven’t used in over a year.

It’s too late to get your peg on the map, but you can pick up a map at the chamber office as early as 8:00 a.m. So get up and get out early before that sun gets too hot.

If you don’t have a garage to sell, but you do have other things, come on out anyway. If you would like to sell sandwiches, cold drinks, ice cream, snow cones, cars, trucks, tractors, fleas, puppies, kittens, used clothing, new clothing, slave labor, fleas, rabbits, chickens, autographs, furniture, wood, stone, bricks, dirt, stereo/computer equipment, lamps, fleas, photographs of Munday or Knox County, books, CDs, apple pies, cookies, Mexican food, quilts. Do you get the idea: use your imagination. The important thing is to get out and get reacquainted with our neighbors and maybe meet someone new.

The Council on Gardening and Farmer’s Market is announcing that Saturday will also be the Kick Off for the Munday Farmer’s Market. That is, if anyone has any fresh fruit or vegetables. Or, if you plan to spend hours and hours in the kitchen, a few fruit pies will sell fine. Just bring them and see. We can sell anything that’s fruity or veggie in the Farmer’s Market. Even refried beans.

We sent word up to Charley in case they had some fresh peaches to bring down. Wouldn’t you know it, the freeze got every one of them. So no peaches from Charley this year. We hinted toward Fredericksburg, but that’s a far peace for mental powers to work wonders. However, if you know someone, anyone, who has fresh produce, tell them to bring it in and meet us around the square, early.

Gardeners, if your produce isn’t ready this week, bring it in next week. Our plans are for the Farmer’s Market to be a permanent fixture in Munday. Even if we have to go somewhere else to buy it, let’s bring it here to sell it at our own Farmer’s Market. The biggest and the best of them started this way. We can do it too, and we will do it. We imagine that, at some point, the market will outgrow the square. That would be wonderful and we plan to expand if that happens. Think with us, work with us, and pray with us, that the right space will be available to us when the time comes. This is larger than us, so we will call it a God thing: He can provide what is needed, at the time it’s needed.

Saturday will only be what we, the citizens of Munday, make it. It can be another hot day with a few crazy people trying to get rid of their junk. Or it can be a day when everyone in town decides to have fun and make this day one to remember. Saturday can be a huge step in getting Munday on the right track toward a glorious future. Munday can be more than a tiny spot on that big Texas map. Munday can be a place where everyone wants to come and see for themselves: Munday is high cotton and golden wheat, and a whole lot more. Our dirt will grow anything.

The future begins now, so everyone come out and give your smile away. There are smiles, but then there are Munday smiles, straight from the heart. Good luck in your sales, or purchases. Oh, did I mention selling fleas? You know, flea market stuff. If you need answers not provided here, call 422-4540.

2009-06-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, 6-3-09

I have a love-hate relationship with city ordinances. They are the made-in-Munday laws that cover yards and lots, and lots of animals. They also cover old vehicles, vagrants and noise.

Ordinances were created by those who wanted to bring everyone else into compliance with a prescribed way of getting along. The Horseless Carriage ushered in ordinances by the wagon load. They were noisy and scared the horses and chickens. There were those who thought man couldn’t survive 40 miles-per-hour in one of those contraptions. Automobiles would be the end of “a way of life.” And they knew nothing of pollution in those days. And to think, my daddy courted my mother in one of those crazy things.

Ordinances are enacted to fill in the gaps between Federal and State laws. Ordinances can be stronger than state laws, but not weaker. State law provides a ceiling for fines imposed on violators of city ordinances. For most the highest fines are $500, while those concerned with health and safety can reach $2,000.

In a perfect world ordinances would not be needed: every citizen would automatically do what is right to get along in society. Suffice it to say we don’t live in a perfect society where everyone obeys the laws of our land, or our city. Sadly some of us still want to live like our ancestors and fill our caves with the bones and furs of our daily kill. In order to live harmoniously in modern society every citizen is obligated to do their part in keeping our air, water and planet clean and free of dangerous chemicals, and other harmful stuff.

Used correctly, ordinances can help keep things in order. Ordinances are for everyone, not just some of us. However, everyone must be treated the same. This is difficult to do, because in the eyes of some they are singled out for punishment while others receive preferential treatment.

I am the middle man who gets to deliver the bad news when alleged violators show up in court bearing their gilded citation. I’m the one who gets to hear their monologue of mistrust and profanity. My skin shines with the scars from their biting barbs. It’s all in the line of duty.

Not long ago one of my “clients” came in with one of those yellow wasps citation) and in a quiet, reverent voice asked, “How much I owe?” He had just finished paying off his wife’s speeding ticket, I knew he couldn’t afford to pay for a ordinance violation. At first I refused to accept his money. But he insisted, “It’s my right, as American citizen.” I looked into his dark eyes, now alight with the fire of patriotism. I was humbled to tears, never had I witnessed anything as powerful as this. I set my rate card aside and fined him the minimum, which was still too much for this case. He proudly paid it and thanked me for allowing him to do his duty.

I’ve learned that he was born in Mexico and got his citizenship the old, hard way. He knows more about being a dutiful citizen than most Americans. Don’t you know he was the first one at the polls on election day. He had a right to complain: he didn’t. Instead, he exercised his right to pay a fine, just like any other citizen. God has blessed America with citizens like him. The rest of us pampered papas need to do some soul-searching.

Most of us think of ordinances in two ways: they’re good/they’re bad. If you own a wasp they are bad. If you are smiling you are on the other side. An ordinance can be like a big stick, to beat someone into submission. If we want to bring someone into compliance we support Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” policy. If you want to listen to your music as loudly as you please you don’t support the stick. In fact, you just crank it up another notch just for spite.

Where ordinances are concerned, I have a difficult job to do as municipal judge. However, I will be fair and just, but I will not whop you with a big ol’ stick. I have a gavel for that.

2009-05-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

2009-05-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

2009-05-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Inside city hall, May 13, 09

We were headed north on the coastal road of Vancouver Island, off the west mainland of Canada. As we came up on the crest of a hill we saw an amazing sight: on top of a large store were several goats. There were also weeds and grass, not your ordinary rooftop adornment. I had to stop and check this out. I asked the goats why they were up there. Of course I got my answer in goat language that sounded a lot like, “Why not?”

The building was attached to a hill, in fact part of the store was dug into the hillside. Goats are notorious hill-climbers, so why not? Unique, to say the least. Since we were already stopped we browsed a while. The store won!

It could be that someone from the Waco Chamber of Commerce saw the same sight. The Waco chamber has a “living roof” on its new energy-efficient structure. There are 1,750 square feet of a variety of vegetation reducing the temperature atop this “heat island.”

Roof plants also collect airborne pollutants and add an extra layer of insulation, reducing heating and cooling costs. The low-maintenance plants are irrigated with rainwater. Excess water is directed to a cistern on the ground. During dry periods a solar-powered pump redirects the water back to the roof.

Someone was thinking outside the box on this project. I lift my hat to the Waco chamber. This gives the old saying, “Don’t let the grass grow under your feet” a new meaning.

The U.S. Defense Department has offered a research grant for the most promising idea on how to produce fuel from algae. With concerns about biofuels made from food crops, the idea of algae as a fuel source has blossomed.

The algaes that produce fuel are not the same that you find floating in a pond. These tiny organisms are genetically modified versions that have proved capable of producing high-octane gasoline and airplane fuel. Fuel algae can be grown with wastewater in locations inhospitable to food crops. Coal-fired electricity plants could supply carbon dioxide as plant food.

Supporters of the idea hope that fuel algae will one day replace petroleum as a fuel source. Researchers at the University of Texas have the world’s largest collection of algae specimens.

These projects were at some point just little bitty ideas that were eventually moved to the front burner and allowed to simmer and be stirred until they became full-blown plans. Someone probably laughed at one or both, but not for long.

That store owner in Canada wanted to build a larger building than he had space for on the side of the road. No doubt he had an idea to dig. And raise goats, to a new level, where they would draw attention to his store.

Ideas are diamonds in the rough just waiting to be polished. So don’t stop thinking and dreaming. Share your ideas with the rest of us and we promise not to laugh.

2009-05-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

2009-05-18T18:03:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, May 20, 2009
Goree school, the end of another era. Recently I had opportunity to chat with a student who did her Junior High years at the Goree facility. There was sadness in her tone as she shared the good times on the bus and just being a part of that small, separate campus. High school was far away from realty but now it looms in the near future.

For what it’s worth I understand her emotions. My Junior High graduation from Sunset was 54 years ago. Is that dating me or what. I remember those years as if they were far more recent. Each grade had its own bus, how special was that? Eighth grade was especially nice, by then we had discovered the opposite sex. To sit by a girl on the bus was as close to a steady relationship as we could get. As a rule those relationships didn’t last long, as least mine didn’t.

We had our own gym and football practice field, complete with goatheads. No artificial turf for us either. We didn’t have face masks back then. They didn’t come until my freshman year when Coach Stewart bought three of the bars. They were all broken before the end of the season.

We had more fun in that short gym, I think we had some function in there every day. Fridays were special, however, because we had fun and games, some kind of competition all the time. My sixth grade year I remember being on a team with Gayle Littlefield, who was an eighth grader. I thought she was the prettiest girl who ever twirled a baton.

There was a little store close to the school building. In those days we were allowed to go off campus for lunch. Sometimes that was a bag of salted peanuts poured into a bottle of coke. Or an RC Cola and a Moonpie. Memories, oh how sweet.

That special time ended and we moved on to the big, old, high school building. Now that was another special time . . . let me tell you about that.

I mourn with the Junior High kids who will become part of the big campus in town. It won’t be the same, but it’ll be good. It’s not the destination that’s so special really, it’s the journey. Enjoy it as you go, you only get one try at it.

“I don’t want to get involved,” they say, as Detroit is shut down and import Chinese GMCs. Munday can fall apart at the seams, but some folks will not get involved. Cars and houses are being vandalized but no one knows anything. It’s as if they know better than to speak up. The city can’t help when people won’t cooperate.

This is where and when I begin my time as mayor. Thank you for your votes and well wishes, now it’s time to get involved in the life of Munday. Unlike President Obama, I can’t promise a quick fix. Nor can I come up with huge sums of money to throw at our needs. I do promise, however, to work hard for the betterment of Munday.

I plan to call a town meeting soon, and we’ll roast marshmellows over the fire. I want the people of Munday to come together with the council, city leaders, and police and talk about things ALL OF US can do together to get Munday back on track. “Back on track” is my motto for moving forward. In my way of thinking Munday was once a vibrant community, full of life and promise. It can be that way again, but it will take a gigantic effort from every one of us.

I think all of you have, or have had, a dream for/of Munday. I want everyone to share those dreams with the rest us. Write letters to the editor and share your dream. If you will do that, we have a new beginning already. What we all want for Munday is just a dream away.

I’m not crazy, I am just a silly, out-of-box thinker who believes in miracles. Please be thinking what you want to say at the town meeting, we will be asking what’s on your minds.

2009-03-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, April 1, 2009

The front steps of the Yarbrough Hotel was a popular place to sit and watch traffic go by, and see who came in, or left, on the morning bus.

Bus service, like the train, decided to move its tracks elsewhere. All haven’t forsaken us, however. UPS, FEDEX and USPS still make regular deliveries to Munday.

If you want to sit and watch there are benchs in front of most buildings on Main Street. That’s right, Munday’s beautiful Main Street, with it’s beautiful lamps and red brick work. It is beautiful and we should all be proud of it. We can thank the state of Texas for that. Let’s not forget Centennial Park either. Keeping Munday Beautiful had a hand in getting a grant from the state of Texas for the work done there.

Yes, we have all of that to be proud of. Let’s move on to our next beautification project. Does anyone remember what our next project is?

It is a memorial park, to be across from the Dollar General Store. This is a Governor’s Award Grant and the contract will be let in May, so construction will begin in June or July of this year. We can all look forward to a monument containing photographs and bits of Munday history being erected on the premises. There will be grass, flowers, shrubs and trees to fill out the lot.

Perhaps we can create our own garden project somewhere near the new memorial via our community garden club. It’s not a done deal yet, but neither is it a dead deal either. Everyone interested in the project is invited to a special meeting Thursday night, April 2, at 7 p.m. at the Church of Christ activities center. Bring your questions and ideas and be ready for some active discussion and planning. Even if we don’t get seeds in ground this summer we can form an organization.

This will be the group that will give Munday its new look. Munday desperately needs a new look. Come one, come all, lets get organized to bring beautiful color all over Munday. Catch the vision, Knox Prairie Vision, full-color vision. Munday will become known for our beautiful year-round gardens. What’s wrong with that? Up beside some old tractor? Get on board now.

2009-03-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

2009-03-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

inside city hall, 3-4-09

Welcome to the third world. Our quiet, neat little village has taken a giant step backward onto a world without order. In spite of tremendous efforts by Keeping Munday Beautiful and our police department, Munday has turned into a trash heap.
As the changing of the guards was taking place a thief, or more, broke into Osborne’s store. A few nights later vandals laid waste to several vehicles outside the high school gym. During Christmas a street gang kept ripping down Christmas lights. Someone knocked down a light pole at city hall. The light was replaced at a cost of $200, no one knows the total cost at school. We haven’t even mentioned the damage to The Belfry Restaurant at Weinert. This is the most trouble we’ve had around here since Bubba shot the juke box.
This is one kind of blight, but there’s more. Just look around the city, it won’t take long I promise. One will see cans, bottles, paper wrappers, and items of clothing strewn around the town. Some of it is near or around dumpsters, also one will see mattresses, charcoal grills, and pieces of wooden furniture. In one dumpster someone discovered unbagged ears, tags, and animal hides. Naturally this mess attracted flies and other flesh-eating varments. Not a healthy environment for the neighborhood.
Old houses and other buildings are falling down. They have been with us so long that we hardly even notice them anymore. Sure other towns have them, but this is Munday. We are going to be different.
Law-abiding citizens don’t go around breaking into stores, destroying property and stealing from their neighbors. They know what they can’t fit inside dumpsters needs to be disposed of in another way. The question is, who is doing all this stuff? If it isn’t the law-abiding citizens of Munday, just who is it? And when we find out who it is, what are we going to do about it? Can we extradite them? To where? Just a passing thought.
We buried a loyal friend of Munday last week. We will miss Durwood Thigpen at the Chamber of Commerce office, the Lion’s Club, the city hall, the golf course, First Baptist Church, and a lot of other places. I don’t normally do this in this column, but this week I want to dedicate this space to his memory. Durwood made a lasting impression on me as a freshman at MHS. He taught me how to heave the shot put, not throw it. Unless you have been there you would not understand how big a deal that was for me. As impressive as he was in person, there are many moments spent in his presence that will be remembered as well. If he liked you he would tease you. Unmercifully. There was a sweet price to pay to be in his company of friends. Believe me, none of us have enough friends like Durwood. Durwood, you’ve left us with a big hole in our hearts that we just can’t replace. We know you are in a better place, however, that doesn’t fill that place in our hearts. But we are happy for you. You can play golf every day now with Jesus and not get tired. Enjoy it friend, we’ll see you later.
Think with me about a community garden, or community gardens. It can grow flowers, vegetables or community. It can be one community plot, or many individual plots. It can also be a series of plots dedicated to growing produce for market.
During the great depression of 1929 there were Depression Relief Gardens; in the ‘80s were the Freedom Gardens. I propose to call ours the “Bailout Gardens” of the Obama era. Let’s be prepared, just in case the worst comes about. In case the economy doesn’t bounce back, let’s be in control of our very own food supply.
When you see me ask me what I’m talking about. Otherwise I’ll subject you to more “boring” articles. But the idea is not borning at all. In fact I think it’s exciting about getting organized and growing our own, right here in Munday City. A Farmer’s Market is close behind. Watch this space.
Allow me to close with this suggestion, and or, plea. Pray for rain!It’s the most we can do.

2009-02-17T19:47:00.001-08:00

Inside city hall, Feb. 11, 2009

Texas Civics 101.5
Since elections are coming up for city council and mayor a refresher on city government might be a good idea. After all, anyone running for office should have some idea of what a city government is and how it operates.
There are two categories of cities in Texas: home rule and general law.
Home rule cities are larger cities. Any city over 5,000 population in which the citizens have adopted a home rule charter is a home rule city. A charter is a document that establishes the city’s governmental structure. Home rule cities do not look to state law to determine what they can do, as general law cities must, home rule cities look to the state constitution and statues to determine what they may not do. If the constitution doesn’t say they can’t do it, then they probably can do it.
General law cities are smaller, most of which are less than 5,000 population. For general law cities specific statues spell out their powers. If state law doesn’t say they can do it, then they cannot do it. Period.
Unlike home rule cities, general law cities do not have charters. The creation of a general law city is documented in its incorporation papers, filed at the county courthouse, which describe when the city was established and its original boundaries.
Munday is a general law city and was established March 24, 1906, with approximately two square miles within its boundaries.
There are three categories of general law cities: Type A, Type B, and Type C.
Munday is a Type A general law municipality. Type A general law cities operate under one of two plans of government: aldermanic or commission. A municipality with the aldermanic form of government operates in accordance with statutes applicable to Type A general law cities.
The governing body of a Type A city is known as the “city council”. If the city has not been divided into wards, the governing body always consists of a mayor and five council members. Munday operates under the aldermanic plan and has a city council and weak mayor. A Home Rule city would have a “strong” mayor: one who has administrative authority over the city.
Any general law city can adopt the city manager plan of government. Upon presentation of a petition signed by at least 20 percent of the number of voters voting for mayor in the preceding city election, the mayor must call an election on the question of adopting the city manager plan.
If a majority of the votes cast favor adoption of the city manager plan, the council must, within 60 days after the election, appoint a city manager and fix his or her salary by ordinance. The administration of the city is to be placed in the hands of the city manager, who serves at the pleasure of the city council.
In any city where the city manager plan has been approved, all officers of the city, except members of the city council, shall be appointed as provided by a city ordinance.
Under the city manager plan, the council serves as the legislative body. The council sets policy, approves the budget and sets the tax rate, and it determines the size of the payroll and the extent and cost of municipal services. The council is the final authority on all of the many policy decisions that determine the scope and functions of the city government.
The mayor and council members have no administrative duties under the city manager plan. These are vested in the city manager, who is responsible for directing the work force and programs of the city in accordance with ordinances, rules, and regulations adopted by the council.
The typical city manager in Texas is appointed for an indefinite term and is subject to dismissal by the council at any time. He or she is designated as the chief executive and administrative officer of the city and is accountable to the council for the proper conduct of all municipal operations. The manager has the unilateral authority to hire, discipline, and fire the department heads under the manager’s control.
Next week we will have information on the office of mayor.

2009-02-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Secret Societies:

The Bilderbergers

The Bilderberger group got its name from the hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland, where it met shortly after its creation in 1954. Officially it has no name: but then “officially” it doesn’t exist. In reality it is composed of more than 100 of the global power elite; international financiers, multinational bosses, and political leaders and European royalty, including Prince Charles, Queen Sophia of Spain, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The two leading power brokers are the American Rockefeller family and the European Rothschilds.

Every year they meet for four days at a secret location in Europe or the United States. The meetings are not publicised. This is because top media figures are either members or on the guest list. The publisher of the Washington Post attends every meeting and the news chiefs of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and TV networks have also taken part on the understanding that discussions are off the record. As french broadcaster Thierry de Segonzac put it, “the Bilderbergers are too powerful and omnipresent to be exposed.

The meetings were chaired by former Nazi SS officer Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands until his resignation in 1976 following his involvement in the Lockheed Scandal. The current chair is Lord Peter Carrington, a former British government cabinet minister and secretary general of NATO, who is connected to the Rothschild family through marriage.

Reporter Emma Jane Kirby has described the Bilderberger Group as “an extrmely influential lobbying group with a good deal of political clout on both sides of the Atlantic.” This is greatly understating their influence. A unified Europe, the Treaty of Rome, the single European currency, the ending of the Cold War, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Brady plan (President Reagan’s pledge to provide $50 billion to Third World and Communist countries), and the ousting of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister of Britain because she resisted the European super state, are just a few of the ideas that materialized at Bilderberger meetings.

Like its related groups the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger aim is a one-world government and to promote the idea that national sovereignty is outdated and regressive. Author Neal Wilgus has described them as a “sort of unofficial CFR, expanded to an international scale.” Many critics believe they have the clout to mastermind world events and engineer policies and international projects that increase their wealth and power. If power is what they seek, then one group of politicians would be easier to bribe, corrupt, and influence than those of several countries. These high priests of globalization benefit greatly from “internationalism” since it inevitably leads to large-scale, publicly funded projects that can be used to increase the Bilderberger’s wealth and power (for example sending billions in financial aid to the former Soviet Union and then extracting natural resources at rock-bottom prices; disastrous International Monetary Fund Policies that deliberately keep Third World countries crippled and powerless).

Every year, in addition to the core membership, a few ambitious new faces are invited, selected when they are in a promising political position, dropped when they cease to be of use. Douglas Wilder, the first black United States govenor was invited when his political career looked set to go stratospheric, but in 1984 when he failed to gain more than one percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary, he was removed from the guest list. However, the Bilderbergers struck lucky in 1991 when they invited the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, into their fold at their confab in Baden Baden, Germany. A year later he was elected president.

It is alleged that the Bilderbergers have had every president since the early 1970s in their pocket. Gerald Ford was a Bilderberger; Jimmy Carter and his vice president Walter Mondale were members of the Trilateral Commission. During the 1980 primaries Ronald Reagan said he would have nothing to do with the Trilaterals, but later appointed Trilateralist George Bush his vice president. George W. Bush was not connected to these groups, but several in his administration are Bilderberger attendees.

Former British intelligence officer Dr. John Coleman claims that the conference is sanctioned by Britain’s MI6 with authority from the Royal Institute of International Affairs (of which Lord Carrington is the president). In America, the CIA provides intelligence and security for the meetings. This isn’t surprising since the framework for the CIA—the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was built by none other than John J. McCloy, a former Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Chairman of the Rockefeller Chase Manhattan Bank.

The fact that the police arrest and charge card-carrying journalists who attempt to expose them is clear evidence that Bilderberger meetings are more than a “private” event. The organization and security cordon surrounding them makes White House security look like the Home Guard. In Versaille the security perimeter was unprecedented and local residents had their movements restricted by Bilderberger security and the French military, although no one was given a satisfactory explanation, and nothing appeared in the press.

A member of the European Commission and Bilderberger attendee, Mario Monti, recently played down the conferences saying, “The participants attend meetings in a private capacity and the statements which they make are not binding on the [European] Commission; no resolutions are passed, no votes are taken and no political communiques are issued.” The reality is that the Bilderbergers’ off-the-record briefings are way above democracy and the law.

2009-02-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

People of faith may be target of 'stimulus' package

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow - 2/5/2009 6:30:00 AM

The administration's economic stimulus bill needs a fix to avoid a courtroom confrontation.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice, tells OneNewsNow there is a provision of the act that actually allows for funds to be given by the federal government in the form of grants for renovation of existing colleges and universities.

"But when you read a little bit further into this legislation, there's a specific prohibition on two things," the attorney explains. "One, if the university itself is a religiously based or faith-based institution, it does not qualify. And if the facility that is being renovated allows religious worship to take place, it also does not qualify."

Specifically, the provision reads that stimulus funds may not be used for "modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities -- (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."

Under that provision, according to Sekulow, many schools would bar on-campus worship or even Bible study because it will put federal funding in jeopardy. That, he says, should raise a warning flag in a federal courthouse.

"It is unconstitutional -- and while I'm prepared to challenge it in court, and we're already working on a possibility, it really needs to be handled in the legislation," the ACLJ leader suggests. "That needs to be job one...remove this provision and get it out of the legislation."

Sekulow states that a "troubling pattern" is developing regarding the use of taxpayer money -- and that this provision is the latest example. He contrasts it with the new administration's swift move to make federal funds available for abortion-providers overseas.

"There is a priority problem in Washington," he says in a press release. "This is not what 'economic stimulus' is about. We know that the American people don't want their tax dollars used for discriminatory measures. That's why this provision must be removed now."

The attorney says if the discriminatory provision is not removed from the stimulus package and is approved and signed into law, the ACLJ will challenge it in federal court.

Stimulation of discrimination?
Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, agrees that the "anti-faith" language of the provision will censor and force people of faith from the public square.

"In order to receive stimulus money our public schools will have to expel after-school Bible clubs and weekend religious meetings," says the Christian attorney. "People who want to speak about their faith will be unwelcome in public places."

He adds that President Obama's idea of faith-based initiatives apparently is to "remove faith from all initiatives."

2009-01-30T16:36:00.000-08:00

NBC refuses to run pro-life ad

NBC has rejected a pro-life ad for the Super Bowl, citing its policy not to run ads involving "political advocacy or issues."

The 30-second television spot, a project of CatholicVote.org and financed by The Fidelis Center for Law & Policy, actually emerged just before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, explains there is nothing objectionable in its "life-affirming" message, which features ultrasound pictures of a baby in a mother's womb.

"The ad actually sparked so much interest, and we started getting e-mails and calls from people who saw the ad [and] wanted to try to put it on the air," says Burch. "And given the time of year that we're at, there began a campaign to put it on the Super Bowl."

Burch says his organization signed a contract with NBC to air the spot, and they were extremely happy -- "Until we were informed that NBC, in conjunction with the NFL, was rejecting our ad because it was a political or issue ad," Burch states, "and they said they have a policy against it."

The CatholicVote.org spokesman points out in a press statement that NBC appears to be inconsistent in applying its "no advocacy ads" policy. He notes the network rejected an ad produced by PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- because of its suggestive sexual content.

"There's no doubt that PETA is an advocacy group," argues Burch. "NBC rejected PETA's ad for another reason altogether. Our ad is far less provocative, and hardly controversial by comparison."

He respects NBC's decision but says his group's pro-life ad is not divisive or confrontational and is not really political. It simply asks people to imagine the potential of every human life.

"And particularly one person's human life -- which I won't give it away. You'll have to watch the ad," he says.

The 30-second ad can be viewed at CatholicVote.org.

2009-01-27T14:24:00.001-08:00

America, while you were sleeping…

-We have opened the Pandora’s Box of political correctness, and with no end in sight.
-There have been over 30 million killed; we still cannot agree that two arms, two legs, and a head constitute a baby, but is instead referred to by the pro-choice lobby as “fetal tissue.”
-We have chased God out of the public square, and in His place have erected the hollow edifice of government.
-We have let the mainstream media go unchallenged far too long. The media has now almost become a political party unto themselves, and looks to sensationalize the news on behalf of their chosen political interest.
-We have allowed ourselves to believe that we’re in total control of our government, but are now face to face with the reality of what decades of liberalism has cost—and will cost— all of us in the future.
-We have, for decades now, watched as judges throughout America attempt—and succeed—in making law as opposed to interpreting it. It seems all were lulled into thinking that judges were beyond political calculations. We were wrong.
-We have allowed “victimology” to become a way of life for the country’s so-called minority populace. That would be everyone except white males.
-We have given title and importance to such low-brow political types as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, and other liberal notables.
-We have witnessed the agenda of America’s plastic people in Hollywood. That these actors and the like should be paid any heed at all when their entire lives are wrapped up within the elitist and narcissistic bubble they live in, is simply wrong, and wasteful.
-We have given too much latitude and forgiveness to America’s Islamic leadership and citizenry within the United States. Where were their much-needed voices regarding 9/11? Where the hell are they now?
-We have watched the Congress of the United States—specifically the Republican-controlled House of Representatives—spend the taxpayers’ money as if it were their own. Over 5,500 earmarked or pork-laden spending items is tantamount to theft. Where are the Gingrich Republicans of 1994?
-We have watched the Democratic Party declare that America’s biggest threat is not Osama bin Laden, North Korea, or even Iran. It is George W. Bush. And because of this…
-We have watched as the Democratic Party has, without question, aided America’s enemies through its ceaseless and tireless harangue against the “corrupt” and “scandalized” presidency of George W. Bush. Though nothing has been proven against this president, it is not necessarily intended to. This is done as a spring board for what the liberal Democratic Party hopes for most: the reacquisition of political power.
-We have watched millions of illegal aliens march through the streets of over 60 American cities demanding “immigration rights,” when most Americans know that these marches have nothing to do with “rights,” but with pressuring the Bush administration into granting a circuitous route towards amnesty. And stunningly…
-We have seen the political tin ear of George W. Bush regarding immigration, and it is unacceptable. By his inaction of not securing America’s borders, this president endangers America, a concept that is hard to believe when one views this very same president’s actions in the war on terrorism.
-Finally, we have tragically grown accustomed to the everyday ravages of all of the above, and pay them less and less attention. From the annoyance of trying to remove the word “Christmas” from, well, Christmas, to the ability of the states to take land from one private owner and transfer it to another, (Kelo v. New London) Americans have grown pre-occupied, and calloused.
Don’t look now, America, but your country is in the process of becoming a shell of what it once was. But in actuality, it is we who are becoming shells of what we once were. While you were sleeping, America, the country you once knew has become, in many respects, the stuff of dreams.
Copyright by Vincent Fiore
—————————————-
Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City. His work can be seen on a host of sites, including the American Conservative Union, GOPUSA, ChronWatch, and theconservativevoice. Vincent is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance and a contributing writer for NewsBusters.org. He receives e-mail at: Anwar004@aol.com

2009-01-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

Americans have it so good!

Inside city hall, jan. 21, 09

Americans have it so good. We use most of the world’s energy, water, and natural resources. There’s no way to count what we have in the way of the world’s goods. But take away just one of the good things we have and we well let you know about it. I promise.

Like a few weeks ago when our water was off a few hours. And last Saturday when Santa Rosa’s whole system was down. For some that included cell phones. Most of us just didn’t have internet, TV or telephone use.

I was affected like everyone else. I prepared my usual bowl of oatmeal and settled down in front of the tube to watch CSI, one of my favorite programs. All I saw was “This station is temporarily out of order.” That message usually means I have unplugged something. Not this time, Santa Rosa was really down. Well, dang, I can’t watch TV, what to do? What else could I do: I ate my oatmeal in the quietness of the night. Actually it was sort of peaceful.

I learned at Sunday school how it affected others. We don’t like to do without what we are used to having. “What’s wrong with those folks, don’t they know I have to watch the Mavericks tonight?” And we do get vocal with one another.

Once upon a time I lived in a far away land, where the people didn’t have all the nice things that we take for granted. Running water was one thing. Actually, the nationals who didn’t have the civilized houses with pipes in the wall were not as bothered as those of us who did. They carried their water from the neighborhood well, and never knew when the “que” people were out of water.

We learned what others did in those times and went down to waterside where we could get pig feet barrels for three dollars each. Empty barrels, that is, although the feet were sold down there, too. I never knowingly ate pigs feet, but barrels came in handy when the water went off. We put one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. That meant we had about sixty gallons of water to use for usual things. Hopefully the water would come back on before the barrels were empty. Yes, we did clean the barrels before we used them. Although the feet don’t smell as bad as other parts of the pig’s anatomy.

We often took our showers beneath the eve of the house during a nighttime downpour. It rained often; Liberia gets over 250 inches during the six-month rainy season. And very little in the dry season. In fact, during the dry season the St. John River (the city’s water source) got so low that at high tide the ocean would rush up the river. Which meant the water in the pipes was salty.

If the water was off, the electricity was probably off first, since it takes electricity to run the water pumps. We had to be ready for that as well. The candle factory did well, there was always a demand for their product. Just plain candles, not the smell good, decorator type, and only one variety at that.

Before the coup in 1980 there was a paint factory that sold white, black, red, green, and blue. If you wanted something in between you better know how to mix basic colors to get what you wanted. Time in Liberia was measured BC or AC: before the coup or after the coup. A split second was the time it took the taxi-man behind you to honk after the light changed to green. The owner of the paint factory was among those lined up on the beach and “executed.”

Liberia was once a peaceful, laid back place, called Little-America. After the coup, however, things deteriorated until the civil war broke out in 1988. Then all the que people had to leave, many with only the clothes on their back. Finally, after all these years things are slowly getting back to normal. Although, water and electricity are not available for most of the population. The taxi men now have cell phones, considering they never had regular phones, this is great. And since there is no electricity, there are no green lights to bother with. Beep-beep.

FYI: I was a missionary in Liberia.

2009-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

Curfew in Munday

Insde City Hall, January 28,
2009

Maybe I have forgotten just how much fun it must be to stay up late, or out late. I went through this with my youngest son, who loved to be out running around at all hours of the night. I told him then, “After midnight, the only people out are the ones who are up to mischief and the police, and you are not a policeman.”

Munday teenagers take notice: you are not invisible. In fact you are very noticeable. Some are carrying little green slips in their pockets, because they are afraid to tell their parents about the citation.

I’ve written about this before, but here we go again. Munday has an ordinance that spells out curfew hours. School nights the curfew is 11:00 p.m. to 6 a.m.. I’ll spell out the days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday and Saturday it’s 12:01 a.m. until 6 a.m. This next part is a surprise to most: Between 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday when our schools are in session, there is also a curfew. If teenagers aren’t in school, they should be off the streets.

Minors cannot be in public places during curfew hours; public places are off limits. Parents or guardians who are with minors in public places during curfew hours are also committing an offense.
Since Munday has no juvenile court, all minors cited for curfew violation will be tried in Municipal Court.

A parent or guardian of the minor who violates this ordinance is, if convicted, subject to a fine not to exceed $500.

The owner, operator or employee of an establishment who violates this ordinance is, upon conviction, subject to a fine not to exceed $500.

A minor may be prosecuted in Municipal Court for a violation of this ordinance and upon conviction can receive a fine not to exceed $500. Court costs for an ordinance violation is $54.

Curfew violation is not taken lightly, it is a serious offense. When buildings are burgled, cars broken into, and vandalism occurs, minors seen running around town late at night are prime suspects. So, parents, drill this into your minor teenager’s head. They need to think about what they are doing or what they intend to do.

Thinking is not that difficult, it does, however, take a little practice. Parents try this exercise at home: set aside 15 minutes a day for your children to practice thinking. Give them something to think about, then test them. If they can’t tell you what they were thinking about, do it again. In fact, do it until they can tell you. No interruptions please, give them to time to complete their assignment.

On a lighter note: In Sterling, Colorado, cats may only run loose if they have been fitted with a taillight. In Florida if an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle. In Pennsylvania guns, cannons, revolvers or other explosive weapons must not be fired at a wedding. In Racine, Wisconsin, firemen must not be woken up when they are asleep.

I haven’t given up on Judge Roy Bean, so be patient, he will show up again.

Court hours are now 8:15 -12, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Special arrangements can be made by calling the office, 422-5220. If you call this number and leave a message for someone else at City Hall, they may not get it for a day or so.

I apolgize for being absent so long. No real excuse, but I did go through a time with gout and not wanting to do anything.

Why did I write about the curfew again? I have touched on the drug problem and teenage crime recently in my articles. I believe this all goes together. The drug problem at high school is probably worse than I had imagined. Evidently there is no discipline at all. At least three girls are pregnant: when asked about it, superintendent Dillard said he didn't know about it. We are close to losing our schools altogether, the state will not allow this type of management to continue. Pray for these problems and for the people involved.

2008-09-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

2008-09-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall, 24 September 2008

What would you say?

Fall is always welcome by the natives of these parts. Don’t you just love these cooler mornings? A cool morning is worth a good sweat in the afternoon. It’s time for those early morning walks you’ve been putting off all summer. Get outside and enjoy it, while “it” lasts.
Late in 1882 the railroad construction moved further westward, so Judge Roy Bean moved his courtroom and saloon 70 miles to Strawbridge. A competitor who was already established in the area laced Bean’s whiskey stores with kerosene. Remember earlier Bean had been accused of selling milk that contained minnows. The current problem was far more serious; no one wanted whiskey that tasted of kerosene. So Bean counted his losses, some 55 barrels of whiskey, and moved further west. He settled at Eagle’s Nest, 20 miles west of the Pecos River. The name of the settlement was soon changed to Langtry.

The original owner of the land, who ran a saloon, had sold 640 acres to the railroad on the condition that no part of the land could be sold or leased to Bean.

Before I tell you the rest of the story, allow me to pose a question to you. If Munday was a railroad town and Bean had wanted to open his business in Munday, what would be the response? Think about it a bit. The Board didn’t go looking for Bean, he came to them. He didn’t ask for “deals,” like tax rebates; all he wanted was a place to establish his business and court room. Must I remind you that the Court was official State business?

I realize it is difficult to picture Munday facing such a decision; to allow the sale of booze. Remember Goree to our east? Okay, let’s move on. What will those who are in control of these matters say to Judge Roy Bean? Will the one holding the crystal ball declare, “It won’t work in Munday?” Will the righteous one say, “We don’t need your kind in Munday!” What will they say?

This reminds me of a story that went around after the Knox City tornado. Someone who lives on a farm out of Munday said he had debris from the tornado in his field. Someone else declared, “We don’t have to worry about a tornado hitting Munday, the Board wouldn’t allow it to come here.”

Okay, I’ll move on. What did Bean do? The judge had friends, you know, friends of the bar. An Irishman, named O’Rourke, stepped in with a simple solution. He told Bean to use the railroad right-of-way, which was not covered by the contract.

For the next 20 years Bean squatted on land he had no legal right to claim. Bean sent for his children to live with him at the saloon, with the youngest son, Sam, forced to sleep on the pool table.

Let me leave you with this thought: Where’s there’s a will, there will be a way, whether it is legal or not. The alcohol question will come again to Munday, probably soon. Munday is not the same town as when the question was last defeated. Most of us have not dealt with the obvious in front of us. We don’t want to see what is happening on our streets, in our schools and in our homes. When the opposing will is weak and does nothing, what happens?

I won’t convict Judge Roy Bean for his actions. After all, he was the Justice of the Peace in Langtry. What would I have done in his situation? I dare not say. Someone in my position just better not say everything he thinks.

2008-09-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

Writing and rain don't mix
Inside City Hall
10 September 2008

Writing and rain are not compatible. Rain is distracting; I just can’t concentrate on the words. That steady rhythm works better than a sedative, it makes me want to curl up and sleep. Oh, how nice it is.

Part of the problem with rain is the memories it brings to mind. Memories of rain beating on the tin roof of my boyhood home. I’ve heard others talk about the same experience, at how they remember enjoying the sound.

But then the rain stops, the alarms go off, “Wake up! The rain has stopped.” Uh oh, the quiet is even more distracting. What to do? Back to the keyboard and try to think of something to write. Usually by this time I have an idea of what it’s going to be. The rain, however, derailed my thought processes. Did you know it rained over three inches in some areas of Munday?

I thought about writing about thieves. What is a thief? The short answer is: one who steals, especially by stealth. I looked on the world wide web (WWW) to see what I could find. I ran across a word I never hear in this country, rogue. In English-speaking African countries a thief is called a “rogue.” Burgler bars are called rogue bars in these areas. One can learn interesting stuff living overseas.

The web is crowded with games about thieves, page after page of links to such games. These games teach our youth how to steal and not get caught. But that’s not what I want to write about.

At times I have wanted to write about the Chamber of Commerce. In some circles chambers are referred to as a board of trade, a form of business network. Business owners in towns and cities form these boards to advocate on behalf of the business community. Chambers represent the interests of all businesses in a town. Local businesses are members and they elect a board of directors or executive council to set policy for the chamber. The board or council then hires a President, CEO or Executive director to run the organization.

Membership in an individual chamber can range from a few dozen businesses to over 300,000 as in the Paris (France) Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Munday handles things in a different way, so I can’t compare apples to oranges here.

Then I thought about writing about the Industrial Development Board (IDB). The IDB of the City of Knoxville, Tennessee, is authorized under state law to undertake financing and development of projects deemed to promote industry, trade, commerce, tourism, recreation, and housing construction. The Knoxville board acquires, owns, leases and disposes of properties that promote industry and develop trade by inducing manufacturing, industrial and commercial enterprises to locate within the city of Knoxville. They even make loans and provide property tax abatements to new start-ups. Again, Munday handles things differently, so I won’t attempt to write any more about this subject.

The hour is getting late and I need to write about something. The only thing that comes to mind is Roy Bean. Judge Bean was a promoter and a developer. Allow me to pass on the tale of the biggest promotion of the century and in Bean’s tenure as justice of the peace.

Prize fighting was illegal in the United States, Mexico and much of the known world in 1896. But that didn’t stop Bean from inviting Australia’s Bob Fitzsimmons and Ireland’s Peter Mahar to duke out the World Championship prize fight in Langtry. There were snitches in those days, too, and someone told the Texas Rangers who sent men to stop the fight. Mexico sent troops to make sure the fight didn’t take place in their country. But in February, sly old Judge Bean outfoxed everyone by holding the fight on a sandbar in the middle of the Rio Grande River. He built a bridge to the sandbar for spectators and had the fight recorded on film. Fitzsimmons won the fight in one minute, 35 seconds of the first round.

You be the judge, was all the hype and promotion worth the effort and expense?

2008-09-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

Inable or inable
Inside City Hall,
3 September 2008

I’ve told the story before about the killing of a Chinaman and how Judge Roy Bean handled the case. There are several Chinaman stories floating around the internet. There is even one where Bean’s own son is accused of killing a Chinese laundry man. Young Bean’s defense was that the Chinaman charged too much for washing the problem child’s shirts.

Needless to say, Bean was in a predicament. He sure didn’t want to sentence his own son to the gallows. He called court to order with his usual formalities: “Bar will close in five minutes gentlemen of the jury, buy your drinks now.”

For the next several hours Bean read from his law book to the jury. When he had finished reading the entire book, he said to the jury, “You have heard me read the entire law book. I read about how killing white men, black men, and Mexicans is against the law. But I did not find anywhere in the book where it said the killing of a Chinaman was against the law. This case is closed and the bar is open. Come on in gentlemen, the defendant is buying.”

This week I want to introduce a new term, enabling. In this article I use the term in its counseling or psychological meaning. This is actually a continuation of last week’s article.

It is when family and friends try to “help” alcoholics, they actually make it easier for the alcoholic to continue in the progression of the disease. For this article we can substitute problem teenager for alcoholics, the meaning is the same. Enabling takes many forms, all of which have the same effect; allowing the problem teenager to avoid the consequences of his actions. This in turn allows the teenager to continue along his (or her) problem ways, secure in the knowledge that no matter how much he screws up, somebody will always be there to rescue him from his mistakes.

What is the difference between helping and enabling? Actually enabling has a double meaning. To help (enable) or to empower, is to do something for someone that they are not capable of doing themselves. Enabling (in the counseling sense) is doing for someone things that they could, and should be doing for themselves.

Simply, enabling creates an atmosphere in which the problem teenager can comfortably continue his unacceptable behavior.

Here are a few questions that might help determine the difference between helping and enabling a problem teenager in your life:

1. Have you ever “called in sick” for your teenager, lying about his (or her) symptoms.

2. Have you ever accepted part of the blame for his (or her) behavior?

3. Have you avoided talking about his behavior out of fear of the response? You really do not want to hear the worst case scenario.

4. Have you bailed him out of jail or paid for his legal fees?

5. Have you paid bills that he was supposed to have paid?

6. Have you loaned him money?

7. Have you given him “one more chance” and then another and another?

8. Have you threatened to kick him out and didn’t.

9. Have you finished a job or project that the teenager failed to complete himself?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you at some point in time have enabled the teenager to avoid his own responsibilities. Rather than “help” the teenager, you have actually made it easier for him to get worse.

If you answered “yes” to most or all of these questions, you have not only enabled the teenager, you have probably become a major contributor to the growing and continuing problem.

As long as the problem teenager has his enabling devices in place, it is easy for him to continue to deny he has a problem -- since most of his problems are being “solved” by those around him. Only when he is forced to face the consequences of his own actions, will it finally begin to sink in how deep his problem has become.

I will leave you with another WWJD question: in the story, did Judge Bean enable (help) his son, or did he enable him?

2008-08-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall
27 August, 2008

In the beginning was God and football. God is where my drug problem began. Mom drug us all to church every Sunday. Football was sort of like the air we breathed, it was there. If you had any size, or had an older brother who played in high school, you played football. I had no choice in the matter, so I played football.

Even though football was a tradition, it was not yet in the realm of the highest order. Coaches still had to teach a class or two and players were just normal kids who had to pass their grades like everyone else.

News of a football player in trouble was rare. Professional and even college football players were role models in those days. But the mystique and charm of Friday night lights eventually changed the world of high school football. Professional teams demanded bigger and faster college players. College coaches scouted for the Blue Chip players out of high school. High school coaches were then forced to follow a different game plan. Two-a-days turned into pro-like all day training camps where high school kids were expected to live and breathe football.

These boys could no longer be kids or regular students. They became demi-gods in cleats. Since they were no longer ordinary kids they could not be bothered with normal stuff like, homework, rules and manners. They were given a lot of freedom with no responsibility to go with it. K+F-R=trouble. No rocket science here, just common sense.

As a city judge I have seen the tragic results of this practice. Some of these boys were tutored to become good high school players without teaching them a thing about respect for others or how to act in the presence of others. When kids test third grade they act third grade, except on the football field: where they have the physiques of young men. (Third graders are apt to don a beach towel and pretend it is a super-heroe cape. Then he's ready to announce to everyone he sees: "I am a football hero. I played for Munday, we are state champs." ) *

When we take a child out of this environment who has never learned respect and responsibility and turn him loose in the world we can expect trouble. Our city policemen will back me up here, because these kids are their job security. These kids cannot handle time-on-their-hands (freedom), they don’t know what to do with all this time.

You’ve all heard of WWJD, right. Meaning no disrespect to the original “J” here, but for this column I want to change it to me: What Would Judge Do? Judge Roy Bean, that is. I often ask other judges what they do to handle these problems in their towns. I get answers that would surprise some of you: it takes tough love; send them all to jail; put them to work on a chain gang. It’s a cold, hard fact that most of these boys are now old enough to be tried as adults. For some of them this will mean some hard prison time for the stuff they have gotten into. In prison they won’t have to worry about having freedom to burn.

Judge Bean’s courtroom was his place of business as well as his home. He had no jail: so he fined, dismissed or turned thieves back over to the ones they stole from. If a horse thief still had the horse, he could give it back and Bean would dismiss the case. If he had sold the horse, the original owner could take him and hang him. Remember now, this was in a different time, and place. That area of Texas was known as the Badlands. Bean was known to have staked prisoners out in the hot desert sun for their fines. What would he do with these former high school foot heroes?

*This sentence added after publication. There is so much to say about this subject. I was shocked to hear that if a student tests third grade, then third grade work is all he needs to do for graduation. Someone please tell me that I heard wrong about this. Are our schools really this bad off?

2008-05-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall May 21, 2008

Tickets, please.

Citations, better known as "tickets," are not popular with most of us. We would rather not ever get one, for any reason. After working with one end of the process for several months now I could probably rank them in order of their popularity.

The least desired citations are the ones handed out for city ordinance violations. No one has a mean dog or an overgrown yard. "You think this is overgrown, you should see ol’ John Brown’s over on the East side, now his yard is overgrown," is a usual response. Or, "Look at John Brown, his dogs are always running loose, why don’t you pick on him?" Or, "I’m not gonna pay this thing until you bring John Brown into compliance." In this situation John Brown is supposed to be a fictitious character, if there is a real John Brown in Munday, please pardon the use of your name.

Some people take a citation in stride, pay their fine and move on, no grudges or hateful feelings for having got "caught." These are the responsible citizens I wrote about last year. We do have a few of them. However, there are some who totally ignore their responsibilities, to be good drivers or to pay their fines.

At its last regular meeting the Munday City Council not only swore in two new council members, but they also gave their approval for the City to enter into a contract with a law firm in Wichita Falls to collect overdue fines and fees.

The firm of Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins and Mott is devoted to the collection of delinquent government receivables. This is their specialty, it’s all they do, so they do it well. This firm’s team of experienced lawyers and collection specialists are accurate, aggressive and persistent yet empathic and sensitive when appropriate. They have the technological infrastructure that helps them locate people who leave "No Forwarding Address." Their arm reaches out a lot further than this one Roy Bean Wannabe in Munday, Texas.

The City pays them nothing, they simply add 30 percent to the fines and fees on each ticket. So if you are holding on to your green copy of a citation, you can save 30 percent by paying your fines and fees very soon. I have learned that there are fees on every citation of at least $52, more on school-zone related charges. These are state-mandated fees, which have to be paid to the state, whether we collect them or not.

This contract will go into effect as soon as we get our new computer and software running and on line with the firm and the State.

Now for some other matters concerning the citizens of Munday. Did you see that bright Orange Hummer in town for the Senior Prom? What’s Hollywood got on us?

City-Wide cleanup May 24. This isn’t much notice, but get your junk out and ready to go. I must be like a lot of folks who claim they have no junk. Lester has merchandise. I have valuable wood products. What do you have? (Have you been thinking about industrial education?)

Here are the rules. Bring the merchandise you wish to donate to the landfill to Knox Prarie Coop between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Sorry, no tires or electronics, or haz mat stuff. You can bring your tree trimmings and other bulky yard wastes to be chipped.

Anything wooden is valuable, remember that. Oh, by the way, if anyone is interested, we would like to form a woodworking club to build toys for tots for Christmas. If you are interested, call the bunny at 421-3334. No funny-bunny stuff, please.

The city-wide garage sale is slated for June 7. Get your good junk ready for that. Let's have a good day of selling and buying each other's good junk.

2008-05-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

Way to go Jackie Lowrance

Before I begin my essay on sludge I want to congratulate Jackie Lowrance on her tremdous writing on the ills of Munday. Wow, she nailed it. There is so much truth in what she had to say. It hurts, it really does. To think that our beloved hometown has so many ills, hurts clear through. I would like comments from others, to see how they look at Munday. But I had to move back here myself to see the things she wrote about. This isn’t the same Munday we all grew up in. Not even close. It’s more like a cold-war battlefield, where everthing is hidden, cat and mouse. Believe me, there are enemies in our midst. There’s abuse, drugs, gambling, prostitution, and stuff going on high places that I don’t yet have a name for. It’s wolves, playing the part of a lamb, and these wolves are fleecing the flock. They have kept Munday down, some of them for over 60 years. More later, but keep writing Jackie.

More to come on a problem with sludge.

2008-05-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall

May 14, 2008

Hanes Underwater Experiment

The election is over, Durwood Thigpen and David Walsh were sworn in last night at the monthly council meeting. The 4B sales tax provision passed, so the City Council will soon appoint a seven-member board. It’s time to move away from the kennel and the polls to something entirely different, maybe even breathtaking. This week I have accepted the assignment of writing about sewage. Citizens pay for fresh water that comes into their houses and they pay again for wastewater as it flushes down the drain.

The earliest document one could find at City Hall pertaining to water/sewage use was from 1934. At that time a new water customer paid a whole dollar for a water connection and inspection and another dollar for sewage connection and inspection. We aren’t sure what the inspection entailed.

A meter deposit was $6.50, which would be returned to the customer upon disconnection. The customer could use 6,000 gallons of water, or less, for $1.50 a month. If anyone used over that amount they would pay 20 cents more for each 1,000 gallons. But for the months June, July and August, the minimum was 10,000 gallons. The lawns were green in 1934.

On each sewage connection where there was one bath tub, one lavatory, one commode, and one kitchen sink the monthly charge was $1.50. If there were other units, the customer would be charged an extra seventy-five cents a month.

The water and sewage bills were due on the 10th of the month, and if not paid on that day or before, the water would be disconnected. There was no grace period, but then there were no late fees either.

The passage of time dictates change, even in the water department. Today the water bill consists of charges for sewage, garbage, and water. This bill is due on the 15th of every month. If not paid by then, the account is considered "Late" and a 10 percent late fee is added to the bill. If the 15th falls on a weekend or holiday, the next business day becomes the due date. If not paid by the 25th of the month, services will be terminated. The bill, plus a $20 reconnect fee must be paid in order to reestablish service. A meter deposit is $100.

Today, water customers pay $14 a month for the first 2,000 gallons and $4 a thousand gallons after that. Sewage is $12 per 2,000 gallons and $2 for each thousand gallons over. The sewage charge is based on the amount of water used.

The City often incurs charges that cannot be passed on to the customers. These charges are anticipated, however, at least to some degree, and are budgeted in preparation for those times.
One of those times happened recently, a sewage blockage occurred on N. 3rd. Simpler methods of dislodging the blockage from the six-inch pipe failed. A crew from Haskell tried to help, but their water-pressure hose couldn’t budge the culprit. So the water crew went after the problem with a backhoe and before the day was over they had a hole in the pipe and had discovered the problem. A large amount of cooking grease had attracted several items of underclothing and other objects, to become a gigantic submerged glob. The thing evidently grew as it flowed and had gotten so fat it couldn’t go any further.

After some amount of work the guys dislodged the "thing," allowing the backed up wastewater to move on. The crew did some nifty engineering to repair the pipe, but the whole north side was relieved, as they flushed without anxiety. Our water crew spent over 60 hours to repair the line.
So you see, the City was not at fault for this unfortunate event, yet they had to pay about $1,17.00 to repair it. City Hall has issued a plea to all citizens, "do not pour cooking grease down the drain, and please do not wash your underwear in the commode." None of us could quite figure out how clothing could make it through the traps to get into the sewer. But they did, and these had names engraved on them, so we know whose they are. Shame of you, John Doe. By the way, you can pick up your belongings at the City Hall, but you might want to wash them before you wear them again.

This incident has been written up as the Hanes Underwater Experiment. This could make the national headlines. Now, didn’t that story take your breath away? If not, maybe you weren’t standing close enought to the hole.

Editor's Note:We will follow up on the sewage part of this story with some interesting information about the "leftovers" of treating wastewater --- sludge.

2008-05-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Taking 'sedation' to an extreme
Charlie Butts 5/14/2008

"Terminal sedation" is a process in which a person with a severe illness or injury who is terminal -- or perhaps in a supposed "vegetative state" -- is sedated until unconscious and then starved to death. Rita Marker of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide believes the practice is fairly common.

"Those who favor assisted suicide, for example, have defined it as ... both sedating the person and removing food and fluids," says Marker. "And then they say, well, you see, they're going to die anyway within 5 to 21 days." As Marker explains, the process is completely legal. "First of all, a person can be sedated if they are in a great deal of pain. Secondly, under all state laws, food and fluids provided by tube -- which they would have to be if the person is sedated -- would be considered medical treatment [that] can be removed from the person who is sedated. So legally speaking, it is something that can be done."
Story continues below...

Should 'terminal sedation' be a legal alternative to assisted suicide?
Vote in our poll

Marker is especially concerned over a West Coast attempt to use terminal sedation to circumvent the ban on doctor assisted-suicide. "[T]here is a bill pending in California which actually would tell doctors that they're supposed to let patients know if they have been diagnosed with having a condition that will cause their death within a year," she says. "If the patient wants to know [their] options, [doctors] are supposed to inform them of all kinds of options, including ... terminal sedation." The task force recommends individuals visit their website for free legal documents in which they can stipulate that terminal sedation be ruled out. An individual also needs to have a second party named to make decisions for them if they are unable, but it must be a person who fully agrees with their position.

2008-05-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

White House report warns of marijuana dangers among teens
by Jennifer C. Kerr - Associated Press Writer - 5/9/2008

WASHINGTON - Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed - 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy."Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as we used to think in the past."

Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview.

For example, using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said.

The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot - 8 percent compared with 3 percent.

Experts who have worked with children say there's nothing harmless about marijuana.

"I've seen many, many kids' lives negatively impacted and taken off track because of marijuana," said Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, director of adolescent services for Phoenix House treatment centers in California. "It's somewhat Russian roulette. There are so many factors, emotional, psychological, biological. You can't predict the experimentation and how it will impact a kid."

Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, an organization that advocates the decriminalization of marijuana, called the study "an absolutely dishonest report, deliberately confusing correlation with causation."

"This very week the British government's official scientific advisers on illegal drugs issued a report saying they are 'unconvinced that there is a causal relationship between the use of cannabis and any affective disorder,' such as depression, he said.

The drug control policy office analyzed about a dozen studies looking at marijuana use, including research by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Overall, marijuana use among teens has decreased 25 percent since 2001, down to about 2.3 million kids who used pot at least once a month, the drug control office said.

While the drop is encouraging, Walters appealed to parents to recognize signs of possible drug use and depression.

"It's not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities," Walters said. "Find out what's wrong."

2008-05-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

The vote was won by men and women who offered their lives in battle. Don't waste their sacrifice. Every election is democratic: vote to keep America democratic and free. Even this election in Munday is important. The future welfare of the city of Munday rides on your vote.

2008-05-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall....May 7

Exercise your voluntary right to vote

A vote, is an individual’s act of voting, by which he or she express support or preference for a certain resolution, a certain candidate, or a certain selection of candidates. A secret ballot, the standard way to protect voters’ political privacy, generally takes place at a polling station. The act of voting in the United States is voluntary, however, some countries, such as Australia, Belgium and Brazil, have compulsory voting systems.

The word poll is from polle (hair of the head), from Middle Low German or Middle dutch pol (head, top). Poll, as used to mean "collection of votes", was first recorded in 1625, from the notion of "counting heads."

Saturday, May 10, Munday citizens who are registered to vote will have an opportunity to exercise their voluntary right to vote. They will enter the polls for the purpose of marking a ballot for or against a 1/4 of one percent increase in city sales and use tax. Also, voters will choose two of the three candidates listed on the ballot to fill two vacancies on the city council. The number of ballots should equal the number of heads of voters who go into the voting booths. Bald voters are asked to wear head cover in order not to confuse the workers as they count heads of hair. If you do not understand this instruction, go back and reread the second paragraph.

Why are we saying so much about this election? By marking FOR the increase in our city sales and use tax, you citizen are voting for a life-extending transfusion into the veins of Munday. The proceeds of this tax offers Munday an opportunity to benefit and accomplish the public purposes of the City for the financing of projects for the promotion and development of commercial, industrial, and manufacturing enterprises and to promote and encourage the health, safety, and public welfare.

With the passage of this proposal, the Munday Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) would be established to manage the work of the new organization. MEDC would also be called a 4B Corporation as stated in the Development Corporation Act of 1979 and Article 5190.6, paragraph 4B, Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas as amended.

MEDC would have its own board of directors, appointed by the Munday City Council. However, MEDC would be a separate organization from the city.

If you are thinking about starting a business or expanding your existing business, MEDC could help. Small business could become an important sector of the Munday economy and MEDC could be the driving force behind our future economic success as a community.

MEDC, could foster the creation of a favorable climate for new and improved job opportunities by encouraging the development of business, industry, retail and tourism. MEDC would be committed to offering new businesses a foundation of economic growth with small town charm which, along with it’s quality of life, could make this a community of opportunity:
· Recruit new businesses
· Help existing businesses expand their operations
· Propose and analyze the impacts of incentive packages
· Assist businesses identify and connect to available resources at the local, state and federal levels

MEDC would be a nonprofit organization and would fund its operation and activities with the 1/4 of one cent sales tax. The Section 4B tax is intended to give communities an opportunity to undertake a project for quality of life improvements, including economic development that will attract and retain primary employers. Cities may use money raised by this sales tax for a wide variety of projects including land, buildings, equipment, facilities, expenditures and improvements related to projects defined in Section 2 of the Act (same uses as authorized for §4A) or found by the board of directors to be required or suitable for use for:
· professional and amateur sports (including children’s sports) and athletic facilities; tourism and entertainment facilities; convention and public park purposes and events, (including stadiums, ballparks, auditoriums, amphitheaters, concert halls, parks and open space improvements, museums, exhibition facilities);:
· related store, restaurant, concession, parking and transportation facilities;
· related street, water and sewer facilities; and
· affordable housing.

In an effort to promote and develop new and expanded business enterprises that create or retain primary jobs, the town could provide economic development assistance for job training, recycling facilities, land, buildings, equipment, facilities and improvements, public safety facilities, streets and roads, drainage and related improvements, demolition of existing structures, general municipally owned improvements, maintenance and operating costs associated with projects, and any other project that the board determines would contribute to the promotion or development of new or expanded business enterprises that create or retain primary jobs.

How much is 1/4 of one percent? One percent of one hundred dollars is one dollar. One fourth of one dollar is twenty-five cents. So if you spend $100 on taxable merchandise, this new tax would cost you only twenty-five cents. That is small compared to the rest of the tax you would be paying. The passage of this tax could bring around $20,000 a year into the life of Munday in some way. And more as the MEDC does its work.

Please vote Saturday.

Think vocational education

2008-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Pay attention here. Sometimes evil dresses itself up to look good. Remember that now.

2008-05-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Justice is served

2008-05-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

Court rules in favor of T shirt

A federal appeals court is upholding a student's right to wear a T-shirt that promotes a Christian viewpoint on the issue of homosexuality.

One day after the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" in 2007, administrators at Neuqua Valley, Illinois, High School ordered senior Heidi Zamecnik to cover the message "Be Happy, Not Gay" on her T-shirt -- although students had been allowed to wear T-shirts with messages celebrating homosexuality the previous day.

But Attorney Nate Kellum with the Alliance Defense Fund says Heidi and another plaintiff, Alex Nuxoll, are pleased with the decision from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow such shirts. "He's able to use the T-shirt stating, 'Be Happy, Not Gay,' as a way of communicating his firm Christian belief that homosexual behavior does not lead to happiness," says Kellum.

Kellum notes public school officials have to understand that if they allow some students to publicly express their viewpoint on an issue, they must allow other students to voice differing opinions on the same topic.

"Up and until this relief that we received from the court, Alex was not able to share the Christian viewpoint on this very important issue," he clarifies, "even though you had a whole day set aside -- called the 'Day of Silence' -- in which the school would actually support a message promoting homosexual behavior," Kellum admonishes.

The case is important, says Kellum, because a similar lawsuit is working its way back through the federal courts in California. In that case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled that a student did not have the right to wear a T-shirt opposing homosexual behavior on religious grounds. But the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the 9th Circuit decision.

The victory in the 7th Circuit could establish the legal controversy needed to obtain a favorable ruling in the California case from the nation's highest court.

Editor's note: I am actually in shock that a federal appeals court would do this. Let's pray that this victory in the 7th Cicuit will be the model for other courts to follow in the future. That plus the fact that the Supreme Court vacated the decision of the 9th Circuit. A shimmer of sunlight is showing through the Gay platform.

2008-05-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we really have no other choice but to hold on where we are and hope for the best.

2008-05-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

2008-05-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

As Paul Harvey says, "Now for the rest of the story."

More About Pit Bulls

If I ask, "What is your opinion about Pit Bulls?" How would you answer? I might have said, "They are vicious dogs and can’t be trusted."

Before I wrote about the Pit Bull Ordinance, I felt obligated to do some research first. What I discovered changed my thinking completely. Now I believe Pit Bulls are getting a bad rap.

Why have I changed my opinion? I’ll begin with a little history of the breed. Once upon a time in merry old England, there was bulldog . . .

The ancestors of modern Pit Bulls came from the bulldogs and terriers of England. At one time, every county in England had its own breed of terrier. Some of these still exist, while others have evolved into new breeds. Such is the case for the English White and the Black and Tan terriers, whose descendants include the bull-and-terriers, the Fox Terrier, and the Manchester Terrier. The development of sports such as rat or badger-baiting (fighting) added to the breeds’ importance, and value.

Mastiff type dogs have a long history in England. The Mastiff is a large, massive, symmetrical dog with a well-knit frame, a broad skull, and a head of generally square appearance. The impression is one of grandeur and dignity. They are thought to have been brought to England by the Celts. It is also known that the Normans introduced the Alaunt. These dogs were used in battle and for guarding, but they also served utilitarian purposes, such as farm work. These dogs accompanied farmers into the fields to assist with bringing bulls in for breeding, castration, or slaughter. Known generally as bulldogs, these dogs protected the farmer by subduing the bull if it attempted to gore him. A dog would do this by biting the bull on the nose and holding on until the bull submitted. They worked bulls, hence the name bulldog stuck. Bulldogs were bred to have powerful, muscular bodies and the resolve to hold onto a violently struggling bull despite injury. These traits permitted the development and rise of the bloody sports of bull-baiting and bear-baiting. In Elizabethan England, these spectacles were popular forms of entertainment. In 1835, however, bull-baiting and bear-baiting were abolished my Parliament as cruel, and the custom died out over the following years.

The sport of dog-fighting, which could be carried out under clandestine measures, soon blossomed. English Bulldogs proved to be too big and uninterested in dog fighting, so they were crossed with English White, Black and Tan Terriers. They were also bred to be intelligent and levelheaded during fights and remain non-aggressive toward their handlers. Part of the standard for organized dog-fighting required that the match referee who was unacquainted with the dog be able to enter the ring, pick up a dog while it was engaged in a fight, and get the respective owner to carry it out of the ring without being bitten. Dogs that bit the referee were culled.
As a result of the breeding, Victorian fighting dogs (Staffordshire Bull Terriers and English Bull Terriers) generally had stable temperaments and were commonly kept in the home by the gambling men who owned them.

During the mid-1800s, immigration to the United States from Ireland and England brought an influx of these dogs to our shores, mainly to Boston. In America they were bred to be larger and stockier, working as farm dogs in the West as much as fighting dogs in the cities. The resulting breed, also called the American Pit Bull Terrier, became known as an "all-American" dog. Pit bull-type dogs became popular as family pets for citizens who were not involved in dog-fighting or farming. In the early 1900s they began to appear in films. One of the better-known dogs was Pete the Pup from The Little Rascals.

During World War I the breed’s widespread popularity led to its being featured on pro-American propaganda posters. (See poster.)

The Pit Bull is the only dog to have ever appeared on the cover of Life Magazine three times.

2008-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

From Jay Leno

I hope you will all read to the end. Jay Leno puts it into perspective and makes us think about the pathetic negativity. That's right, Jay Leno!!

Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....

"The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true, given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed, and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence, 2/3's of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What are we so unhappy about?''

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time, and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provides services to help all, and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings.

Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here. I know, I know.

What about the President who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The President who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same President who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The President that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The Commander-In Chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it ...are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig. So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans ? Say what you want, but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds, it leads; and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by "justifying" them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about "how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way"...Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth, and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.

"With hurricanes, tornadoes, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks,"

Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" Jay Leno 2007

Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people that need to read this and grasp the truth of it all.
(Thanks to Angela Herricks for forwarding this to me.)

2008-04-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall

Pit Bull dogs get a lot of negative press. After all, they were originally bred to fight. But, they were also bred to be trustworthy and friendly to people. These dogs actually earned the nickname "nursemaid’s dog," because they were so reliable with young children.

The Pit Bull dog is generally a very friendly, stable, safe breed. They can and often do make wonderful family pets. An owner of a Pit Bull must train the dog well. Lack of proper socialization and strong training can result in a dog with aggressive tendencies. Under the care of an overly permissive or uneducated owner, Pit Bulls can become dangerous dogs.

Unscrupulous breeding and the negative media attention have resulted in many cities and counties imposing bans on the breed, citing them as "inherently dangerous" to the public.
In the wake of so much media attention most U.S. cities adopted ordinances restricting the ownership of Pit Bull dogs. The City of Munday passed such an ordinance in May, 2000.
In Munday it is unlawful for any person to own, keep, or in any way possess a Pit Bull dog within the City, unless it is properly registered with the City, the registration fees paid, and is maintained within the City in accordance with the requirements of the ordinance. These requirements are strict.

Munday has a large population of Pit Bulls, most of which are not registered with the City. This means these owners, not the dogs, are not in compliance with the City ordinance. Owners can be cited up to $500 for each dog that is not registered. A limit of two dogs per household is a further restriction.

A Pit Bull dog must be on a leash when not in its pen or kennel. The leash should not exceed six-feet in length and be of sufficient strength not to break. When the dog is on a leash outside its pen it should be muzzled to prevent it biting a person. A young child should not be allowed to walk the dog while it is on a leash. If the dog bolted the child could not hold the leash.
When not on a leash the dogs should be confined indoors or in a securely enclosed and locked pen or kennel. The structure must have secure walls, ceiling and floor and must be adequately lighted and ventilated and kept in a clean and sanitary condition.

Pit Bull dogs cannot be kept on a porch, patio, or in any part of structure that would allow the dog to exit the building. These animals should not be kept in a structure when the windows are open or when screen windows or screen doors are the only obstacle preventing the dog from leaving the structure.

All owners of registered Pit Bull dogs within the City should display, in a prominent place on their premises, a sign easily readable by the public, "Beware of Dog -- Pit Bull". A similar sign should be posted on the kennel or pen of each animal.

Pit Bull owners shall provide proof to the City of liability insurance in a single-incident amount of $50,000 for bodily injury or death of any person, or for damage to property. A ten-day written notice of cancellation should be sent to the City in case the owner wishes to cancel the policy.
The Pit Bull owner should provide two color photographs in two different poses, showing the color and approximate size of the animal.

The owner must report any of the following incidents to the City within ten days. The removal from the city or death of a dog: birth of offspring; or new address if the owner moves within the city.

No one can sell, or dispose of a pit bull dog registered with the City unless the recipient person resides permanently in the same household and on the same premises as the registered owner of the dog. The owner may sell a registered pit bull dog or the offspring of such dog to persons who do not reside in the City.

The bad press comes about when individuals have misused the animals by training them to be agressive as fight dogs or watch dogs. Because the Pit Bull is generally such a people-friendly breed, they often make poor guards of property. Many specimens of the breed will allow strangers to enter the home or yard without a fuss. As a guardian of his human, however, the Pit Bull is quite willing and able to intercept an attack. The breed is credited with having an exceptional judgment and will react only to real threats.

To sum it all up, this advice is for all owners of Pit Bull dogs: do not try to make the Pit Bull into something it is not. A good dog can be ruined quite easily, making for a wary, untrusting animal that may become a danger to humans.

2008-04-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

In 1984, President Reagan said:

"In the fourth century, a monk thought he heard God telling him to go to Rome...He followed a crowd into the Coliseum and saw the gladiators. He realized they were going to fight to the death. He cried out, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!'...made his way through the crowd and climbed the wall into the arena...

As he was pleading with the gladiators...one of them plunged his sword into his body...his last words were, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' Suddenly the gladiators stood looking at this tiny form...In dead silence, everyone left."

Reagan continued:

"That was the last battle in the Coliseum. One tiny voice...'In the Name of Christ, stop!' We could be saying that today."

2008-04-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

2008-04-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

2008-04-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Voters to choose two
For Munday City Council

by Bunny Norville

On May 10 Munday voters will go to the polls to choose two new city council members.
Three names will appear on the ballot, giving voters one extra choice in their voting privileges. Exa Lee Martinez, Durwood Thigpen and David Walsh have declared their candidacy for the soon-to-be vacant slots on the council.

The Munday City Council meets the second Tuesday of every month at 6:30 P.M.. Mayor Bob Bowen said the meetings are open to the public and public input is welcome. Bowen and the council encourages everyone to get out and vote in this important election.

The city council is the governing body of the city of Munday. The council is elected by the people of Munday to represent the people at council meetings. Mayor Bowen presides over the meetings and city manager, Dwayne Bearden, prepares an agenda for the meetings and introduces business details for the council to act on. New business can be introduced following the resolution of old business. Anyone who desires a place on the agenda must call the city secretary a week in advance of the council.meeting.

Exa Lee Martinez is a native of Munday, a Munday High School graduate, and a returnee to Munday. Martinez lived and worked for a while in Mexico. She later moved to Dallas where she worked several years for the Internal Revenue Service. Exa Lee has become a regular attender at council meetings. She has a conviction that every citizen should attend the council meetings in order to learn first hand what council meetings are all about. She also has a desire to see Munday grow in population and businesses to support that growth.

Other areas of interest for Martinez are: a complete police force, in line with our population; repair the "old" Marquee and use it again for public announcements; and she would like to see dog owners abide by the dog ordinance for the safety of their dogs, children who play in the streets and drivers. Martinez also wants to congratulate those who chose to return to Munday following their graduation from college. "Thank you for keeping Munday going."

Durwood Thigpen is a native of Munday, a Munday High School graduate and is also a returnee to Munday. A Southern gentleman, Thigpen has worked in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. He has worked for small companies and large companies for over 40 years as a purchasing director. Most of his experience was with companies whose business were farm-related or oil field-related. Thigpen hopes to use his experience and knowledge of purchasing to help save money for the city. He stands behind the principle of shopping around to find and to purchase items at the best price. Durwood also recommends using a purchase order system of buying. Related to his purchasing experience, he adds, "It is imperative to get at least three bids on repairs and other work to be done from outside the city work force."

Thigpen says, "Above all, it is important to make the best with what we have."

David Walsh, the youngest of the three candidates, is also a Munday native, a Munday High School graduate, and is a continuous resident of Munday. David is assistant manager at Lawrence Brothers Food Store. At 47, David has the most experience as a Munday resident of the three candidates. He has seen the changes as they occurred over the years. He has seen countless people come and go as well as witness the heartbreaking closure of many businesses.
Walsh wants to help better the Munday community through his service on the city council. "I’m not a yes man," he says, "and I have no axe to grind. I only want to work for the betterment of Munday." He will vote his convictions on the council.

May the best men win.

2008-04-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall

By Bunny Norville
Municipal Judge

Trash, the rat’s point of view.
Trash is wonderful,
Trash is nice, Trash is loved by rats and mice.
Trash is a delicacy,
It’s known all over the galaxy.
I know, you think I’m crazy, but really I am not,
For you understand, I’m a rat!!!
(By a third grade student.)

Rats and mice may love trash, that smelly, slimy, grimy, dirty stuff. Wonderful, now if they would all stay at the landfills. However, the EPA probably wouldn’t allow that. After all, a landfill would be unsanitary for living beings.

We are not rats or mice. That alone doesn’t make us nice. We are the two-legged animals who make trash out of good stuff. Trash is our leftovers, the stuff we can’t use or otherwise, don’t want anymore. So there are those who make billions of dollars every day, picking up people’s trash. Yes, they do.

In the 1890s, Ham Huizenga, a Dutch immigrant, began hauling garbage at $1.25 a wagon in Chicago. In 1968, his son, Wayne, and two other men founded Waste Management, Inc. and began purchasing smaller garbage collection services across the country. In 1971, Waste Management went public, and by 1972, the company had made 133 acquisitions with $82M in revenue. It had 60,000 commercial and industrial accounts and 600,000 residential customers in 19 states and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In the 1980s, WM acquired Service Corp of America (SCA) to become the largest waste hauler in the country.

Huizenga later sold his part in Waste Management and started Blockbuster. He now owns the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Heat. Needless to say, he’s one of the richest men in the world today.

The City of Munday has contracted with Allied Waste to collect solid waste inside the city limits of Munday.

Solid waste is trash. Residential solid waste means any unwanted or discarded waste materials in a solid, semi-liquid or liquid state.

Munday’s contracted day is Tuesday and collection will not begin before 7 a.m. Trash is usually collected the day after Christmas or Thanksgiving. If collection falls on bad-weather days, it will be rescheduled. A credit will not be issued due to weather conditions.

Munday uses metal bins to collect solid waste. These bins are lifted and emptied mechanically into a special out-fitted truck. Citizens are asked to place their waste in plastic bags strong enough to be lifted by the top without breaking.

Allied drivers have complained several times recently about excessive amounts of building waste inside and thrown around the outside of the bins. When this occurs they will not empty the bins. When materials cannot be bagged or bundled in three-foot lengths, other arrangements need to be worked out to dispose of the waste. Newspapers, magazines, and cardboard will also need to be tied in bundles before disposal.

Large pieces of furniture and appliances should not be placed in the bins. Cardboard boxes must be broken down before they are placed in the bins. Yard waste and grass clippings must be placed in plastic bags or the paper bags sold for that purpose. Do not place loose trimmings into the bin. Tree limbs no longer than three feet are to be strapped together and placed as a bundle into bin.

Other non-allowed items are: chemicals of any kind, pesticides or herbicides, batteries, antifreeze, asbestos, contaminated soils, paint or thinners, drums, untreated medical waste, tires, oil and oil filters, or sludge and liquids.

Allowed items (in plastic bags) include: house-type waste, paper, food wastes, cardboard (bundled), plastic and yard wastes. Dead animals weighing less than ten pounds can be thrown away, if placed in a plastic bag.

Above all, be considerate of others who also use the same bin. Do not use the bin as if it is your private property.

Why you say it: Dead as a doornail
Anything from a withered houseplant to a failed project that is beyond resurrection is likely to be described as being “dead as a doornail.”

Both mechanical and electric doorbells are recent inventions. In earlier centuries, a visitor’s arrival was announced by pounding with a knocker upon a metal plate nailed to the door.

Sometimes it took several heavy blows to attract attention. That meant nails holding the knocking plate suffered a lot of punishment. Repeatedly hit on its head, such a nail had the life pounded out of it so effectively that nothing could be deader.

2008-04-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

2008-04-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

2008-04-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall
by Bunny Norville
Munday Municipal Judge

The day was warm, the sun owned the clear, blue sky, and no wind rustled the new, green leaves of spring. It was such a day fifty-years ago, 1958. It was a Friday, I remember that day as if it was yesterday.

There were five or six of us sitting in the shade of the old high school building. We only had thirty minutes for lunch, but that was plenty of time to walk home, eat and get back to school and waste a little time in the shade, talking, bragging, just killing time. One of us had an idea. Not an ordinary idea, but one that would crack the sure foundation of the Munday Independent School district: playing hookey.

All of us had done it before, you know, one at a time. But never had a group like ours do it, at the same time. One good thing about working in small groups, decisions tend to come rapidly. So we all loaded up and took off for the river. One of the group knew a good place to swim. We all went skinny-dipping that afternoon, man the water was cold. But that didn’t matter, we were playing hookey and that added at least two degrees to the temperature of the water.
We did our thing and headed back to town, we had to be there when school was out. I walked home from school like I always did. Mom was working the berry patch when I rounded the corner of the house. I knew something was up the minute she asked me where I had been.

"I’ve been to school," I said.

"That’s not what Mr. Cox said," Mom replied.

"Oh, my gosh." As it turned out, several other small groups had the same idea. Thirty-six students played hookey that afternoon. W.C. Cox, the superintendent, was a little upset. Cox’s army had searched all over town for the missing students. What in the world had happened to thirty-six students? This had never happened in Munday, Texas, you’d think we had stollen a school bus or something. Mom and Dad were even upset with me. We only missed three classes, good grief.

The amazing thing was, I didn’t get the usual whipping for doing wrong. "Mr. Cox would take care of it, surely," Mom said.

Monday morning finally came. Nobody played hookey that day, even though there were 36 of us who would have loved to. Mr. Cox decided against giving us all licks. There would have been too many for one arm.

We were expelled from school, only we had to go to school. We met as a large group, for three or five days. We were lectured and lectured some more. Morality. Ethics. Honor. Duty. Everything imaginable that had anything to do with youth and decisions. I think we were given quizzes on every lecture. On top of all that we had to write, "I will never play hookey again," at least four million times.

We all survived the week, our egos deflated, but life continued. Most of us graduated, none with honors, however.

Now, I brought you through that story to introduce the subject of today’s lecture: Peer pressure.

Kids face enormous peer pressure everyday to smoke, drink and do drugs. And other things as well. Peer pressure is a reality of his or her life and every kid has to deal with it.

In a survey of 4239 teens, when asked "What do you think is the biggest influence to try drugs?" 59% said peer pressure, 32% said stress and problems, 8% said examples from movies, music and the media. Most teens are pressured into experimenting with drugs for the first time by their friends. Another study of 11,572 teenagers to determine which factors were most helpful in preventing harmful behavior, such as violence, suicide, substance abuse, early sexual behavior and teen pregnancy. Here’s what the researchers found: The presence of parents is beneficial at four key times of the day -- early morning, after school, dinner time, and bedtime.

When that regular contact is combined with other shared activities between parents and kids, the most positive outcome is achieved. The researchers also observed that adolescents who felt a sense of connection with their parents (feelings of warmth, love and caring) were least likely to engage in harmful behavior.

Adolescents whose parents ate dinner with them five times a week or more were the least likely to be on drugs, to be depressed or to be in trouble with the law. Another study showed that dinner time was of more value to child development than play time, school and story time. Clearly, there is power in "breaking bread" together. Those families who ate at fast-food restaurants had the same results. By contrast, the more poorly adjusted teens had parents who ate with them only three evenings a week or less.

What do these findings mean? Is there something magical about sitting down together over a meal? No, and those families who believe as much are in for a disappointment. What these studies show is that family relationships are what matter to adolescents. When parents have time for their kids, when they get together almost every day for conversation and interaction, their teens do much better in school and in life. Families bring stability and mental health to children and teens.

Why a lecture on peer pressure? Why not a teaching on peer pressure, mainly for the parents. In case you haven’t noticed, our public schools have been infiltrated by a clever and well-organized drug network. The present system, whatever that is, has failed our children and our town. Pressure from teachers and parents cannot compete with peer pressure. It is out of control in our schools. When a few students are allowed to taunt, tease, pick on, and beat, other, more timid students, and teachers are afraid to discipline the culprits, it has gone too far. When sex has been brought out into open hallways where it is pushed and practiced without the slightest regard for protection against pregnancy, never mind STDs. This is barbaric behavior, certainly not something that a proud Mogul would adhere to.

God bless the memory of W.C. Cox, and his army. "I will never play hookey again."

2008-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Inside City Hall
By Bunny Norville
Municipal Judge

A bright red and chrome fire truck rolled into town Monday afternoon. Oh my, is it beautiful. It fairly glistened in the evening sunlight . It is by far the prettiest machine on wheels this town has ever seen. Nothing commands one’s attention quite like a new, beautiful, shiny, truck. The hum/roar of the powerful new engine lets us know that this truck will get to the fire in plenty of time.

The whole fire department and their families were at the fire station eagerly anticipating the arrival of the newest in a long line of fire vehicles. This wagon is in its basic condition, as fire trucks go. The Munday fire boys will need to “outfit” the truck now with all the hoses, bells, and whistles. It did come with a loud siren.

This baby is so talented that it can rise on its rear eights and spit a house-fire out. One can hardly imagine what it will do to a range fire. Word has it that it can just hover above the fire and fan it out. Spike, you gotta show me on that one. Is it true that Santa’s whole sleigh will fit in the glove box? A fireman’s gloves are rather large.

We won’t go into the cost here, but just to outfit Mr. Red and Silver will run about $12,000. Former fire chief, Fred Caram, filled me in on some costs of earlier machines. One of the earlier trucks, still in service mind you, altogether cost only $18,000. The cost of red paint has sure gone up over the years.

Go Haywire. Why do we say that?
Moses P. Bliss launched a new era in agriculture and business when he patented a hay press in 1828. His power machine had many defects, but use of it was better than trying to tie loose bales of hay with string.

Demand for baled hay brought improvements that created bundles so firm they could be tied with wire. A major difficulty remained, however, as stiff hay wire easily became tangled or caught in machinery. At other times it would wind around legs of horses or snag clothing of workmen. When cut, wire sometimes snapped outward with enough force to cause an injury.

Until recent decades, production of hay in commercial quantities involved many accidents. As a result, we say that when a device or plan gets out of order, it “goes haywire.”

Despite his self-serving antics, Roy Bean was duly elected Justice of the Peace in 1884 and often reelected, so that between 1882 and 1902, most of his bizarre rulings were the law. Except for an occasional murder, Bean’s cases consisted mostly of misdemeanor counts of drunkenness and the crimes of smalltime con men like himself.

Judge Bean never sentenced anyone to the penitentiary. If anything needed doing in Langtry, however, the prisoner would do it. If there was nothing to be done, the prisoner could take it easy by being staked out in the hot, Pecos sun.

2008-03-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

What is it worth?

The Price of Rice

Once in a while I remember a situation from my missionary service in Liberia. It was April 12, 1979. The Liberian government had announced the day before that the price for a 100-pound bag of rice would go up one dollar. It was like one of us saying to our cat, “Kitty don’t get on the couch.” Cats hear nouns. They ignore commands.

The people of Liberia, upon hearing the words, “Go up,” went into the streets and began protesting. The price increase might as well have been a hundred dollars. One cent would have caused the same reaction. Anger took them hostage and they became one large, violent mob.

When it was all over every store in the country had been looted and destroyed. The mob’s message was, “Don’t mess with the price of rice.” The government got the message, but the merchants paid the price.

Another thought soon came to mind. “How much would an American’s bag of rice need to go up before he would raise a hand in anger and shout, ‘Enough! We will not tolerate any more.’”

How many more American factories moving offshore will it take for the American people to rise up in protest? How much will the price of gasoline have to go up before we protest? How much of China’s lead-laced goods will we allow into this country? How much I ask?

Rice is the staple food of the Liberian people. The majority of them can’t afford a whole bag, a cup was all they could get. Rice is the most important commodity to them. Messing with the price was tantamount to a home invasion.

What is our bag of rice, and how much is it worth? Freedom was once our most prideful possession. Many words have been written extolling the merits of freedom and how proud Americans were to have it. How dare us to be so willing to send our young people to foreign lands to fight for it, and to die for it. We have become comfortable cowards here in America, unwilling to stand up to the liberal lizards in power that have sold us out to the global community, whose goal is to dominate us.

It has already happened. And we laughed at Russia when they claimed America would fall without a shot being fired. I didn’t hear it, did you?

2007-05-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

Does your cat pray before each meal? Do you allow your puppy to help with the dishes? If the answer is yes to both questions, don't let the animal rights folks know about it. Okay. Just think about it.

How is your church reacting to the invasion?

No Sanctuary For Illegal Aliens At Our Church

By Chuck Baldwin

May 15, 2007

This column is archived at http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070515.html

For the past several days, news reports have been circulating throughout the mainstream media regarding the decision by several churches to provide "sanctuary" to illegal aliens. For example, a Fox News report dated May 9, 2007 said, "Two churches intend to give sanctuary to illegal immigrants to protect them from deportation and pressure lawmakers to provide a chance at U.S. citizenship.

"Beginning Wednesday afternoon, a Catholic church in downtown Los Angeles and a Lutheran church in North Hollywood each intend to shelter one person as part of the 'New Sanctuary Movement.'

"A handful of churches in other U.S. cities plan similar efforts in the months ahead to spotlight the plight of illegal immigrants.

"The report continued by saying, 'In New York, religious leaders gathered at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Paul the Apostle and said their promise of sanctuary could include financial assistance, legal help and physical protection, if necessary."'

"For us, sanctuary is an act of radical hospitality, the welcoming of the stranger who is like ourselves, the stranger in our midst, our neighbors, our friends," said Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition.

However, as a veteran pastor with more than thirty years of experience who oversees a vibrant and growing congregation of faithful and dedicated believers, I can state unequivocally that our church will definitely not be participating in the "New Sanctuary Movement."

Furthermore, it is more than troubling to learn that some of my Christian brethren seem to be so undiscerning as to be willing to facilitate lawlessness and even potential terrorism by assisting those who have no respect for our nation's laws or national borders.

Make no mistake about it: illegal aliens are no more our "neighbors" and "friends" than are other criminals. They knowingly and deliberately violate our nation's immigration laws and then have the audacity to demand that we accept and even protect them? I don't think so.

And lest someone accuse me of being uncompassionate, think again. You should know that my church congregation is composed of several immigrants from many nationalities and ethnicities. And they all have one thing in common: they were willing to immigrate to America lawfully. They played by the rules. They stood in line. And they have found nothing but love and friendship from those of us privileged to be born in this great country.

Critics should also know that my Chief of Staff, my right-hand man, is an immigrant from Zimbabwe, Africa. So, I don't want to hear how uncaring and bigoted I am because I believe that people should play by the rules and be honest with their fellow man.

Besides, our Lord has already settled the question of how to define illegal aliens. In John 10:1, Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."

Yes, I realize that Jesus was referring to the fact that He alone is the door to heaven; however, the analogy is well taken. There is a right way and a wrong way to enter into anything, whether it is a sheepfold, a house, or a country. And anyone who attempts to circumvent the door and break through another way is a crook, plain and simple.

Should Christians share the Gospel with everyone they can, including illegal aliens? Of course, we should. However, we should also insist that people obey the law and do what is right. Remember, God is not only a God of love, He is also a God of law. And, historically, the United States of America has always been first and foremost a nation of laws, not men.

Furthermore, since when is accommodating and facilitating acts of criminality a mark of compassion? It's not.

During more than three decades of ministry, I have had occasion to counsel those who have broken the law and then experienced repentance and forgiveness in Christ. Does my compassion mean that I would not encourage them to do the honest thing and surrender to authorities and face their crimes? Of course not. That is exactly what I encouraged, and sometimes even helped, them to do.

Beyond that, I've always found that a person who is truly repentant and honest is more than willing to make things right with the law and to take his punishment like a man. Honest people don't demand or expect shortcuts and exemptions. (Boldface mine.)

Of course, not only is our national character and culture at risk, so is our security and survival. The current invasion of illegal aliens threatens not only our way of life, but also our very safety.

As has already been reported, illegal aliens murder an average of twelve Americans every day. This translates to more Americans being killed by illegal aliens each year than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to date.

Yet, the threat of terrorism is even more problematic than individual acts of violence. With millions of illegal aliens pouring over our borders from scores of nations that are hostile to the United States, we risk the threat of major acts of terrorism.

I'm afraid that the policies of President George W. Bush and Senators Ted Kennedy, John McCain, et al., and now those of misguided churchmen, only serve to fuel the evil machinations of those who seek our harm.

Instead of encouraging criminal activity (illegal immigration), Christians and churches should be promoting truth and adherence to law.

Amen. I could not agree more. Christians are being deceived by these actions of globalist government agents. I don't consider them employees of the American people since they are working against the United States. Globalism is setting the stage for the end to come. Don't you see it? Soon we will see brother against brother as illegal immigration begins to split families. Because there are many who came here the right way being expected to help others take shortcuts they don't deserve.

We are privileged to be born hear. However, many are taking that privilege for granted, we are willing to sell our birthrite for a plate of tamales. Secure our borders.

BVN

I finally spoke to a realtor last week. The first thing he wanted was to come over and do the "before" thing. Oh, boy. In among things like, "You have a very nice house here," he would add other things, like, "You need to get rid of all this clutter."

I started with a yard sale on Friday. I did get rid of a lot of stuff, even if I didn't consider it clutter. It was stuff, my stuff, that i've moved five times already since Brenda died. I have been emotionally attached to this stuff. I'm learning to let go. It's not just your children you have to "let go" of, it's everything you have. So before the day comes when I MUST let go of more clutter and invite people to see my home, I will have another yard sale. I might add that a lot of the stuff going out is paper. Paper that by now I no longer remember what it is, and why I wanted to keep it in the first place. Just let go of it. I have numerous boxes to go through yet. I'm determined to make this move back home the easiest move yet.

Oh, yes, the wood in the back yard. Well, that's going to be a challenge. More later on Buddy's big adventure.

2007-05-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

This is the house I am buying in Munday. Not shown is a big shop area on the right.

Dear Fellow Christians:

Please Wake Up!

By Chuck Baldwin
May 4, 2007 This column is archived at http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070504.html

I suppose there was a time in American politics when there was a significant difference between conservatives and liberals, between Republicans and Democrats, and between Christians and unbelievers. However, with only limited exceptions, that time has largely gone. When it comes to the salient issues that are currently waging war against America's future survival, it is extremely difficult to distinguish those differences.

If one removes the issues of abortion and gay rights from the debate, there is precious little that distinguishes the modern Christian conservative from his liberal counterpart.

Federal spending sure doesn't apply. President George W. Bush and his fellow "conservative" Republicans have the dubious distinction of outspending practically every administration and Congress during the entire 20th century. Only the Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson administrations compare to the insatiable spending habits of the current administration.

Then there is the illegal alien invasion currently taking place in America. What was virtually nonexistent twenty years ago and only a minor nuisance before Bush was elected President has now become a full-fledged assault that threatens our country's very survival. And remember, the Republican Party controlled the entire federal government during the six years that the bulk of this invasion was taking place. And, except for a few conservative congressmen (mostly in the House of Representatives), not only did they do nothing to stop it, they sat back and watched as President Bush actively encouraged and facilitated it, something he is doing to this very day.

Then there is the obsequious manner in which our national Christian leaders treat "big-name" Republican presidential contenders. This is especially disconcerting when one considers that many of these contenders are people with very dubious track records: either bitterly betraying conservative principles or, in some cases, openly subscribing to positions that are downright antithetical to those principles.

For example, conservatism does not have a worse Judas turncoat than Newt Gingrich. His track record as Speaker of the House is more than dismal. Just talk to any of the members of the House freshman class of 1995. Ask Joe Scarborough. Ask Steve Largent. Ask Bob Barr. Ask them if Newt Gingrich is a conservative.They would, no doubt, remind you that it was Newt Gingrich who used the power of the Speaker's office to rush GATT and the WTO through a lame-duck session of Congress before the more conservative '95 freshman class arrived on Capitol Hill, because he knew they would derail passage of these two draconian pieces of legislation.I'm sure they would also remind you that one of the first things Gingrich did after being elected to Congress in 1978 was support the creation of the Department of Education, and Most Favored Nation trade status for Red China. They would also remind you that Newt Gingrich voted for taxpayer dollars to be used to facilitate trade with the communist Chinese.Furthermore, does anyone need to be reminded that Newt Gingrich is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is nothing more than a cabal of elitists dedicated to the promotion of global government?

Gingrich proved himself to be such a Judas that he had to resign or face ouster by the very conservatives he professed to lead. And if one wants further testimony regarding Gingrich's infidelity, ask his first two wives.

Yet, Newt Gingrich is being lauded and cheered as a "true American statesman," to quote one national Christian leader. That leader also said, "Mr. Gingrich is certainly one of the brightest men I know in public life today, and he is becoming one of our great ambassadors for reawakening the spirit of our Founders.

"Then there is Rudy Giuliani. The same Christian leader who lavished praise upon Newt Gingrich recently wrote this about Rudy Giuliani: "I personally have great respect for Mr. Giuliani in terms of his leadership in law and order and national defense issues. In these areas, I believe he would be a potentially great president."This seems to suggest that if Giuliani could just convince us that he is now genuinely "pro-life" and "pro-family," we Christian conservatives should support him. But is that really all there is that qualifies a candidate for President? Would Giuliani truly be a "potentially great president" when it comes to "law and order" issues?

Are we supposed to forget that Rudy Giuliani has been one of the most outspoken proponents of gun control in the entire country? Does it not matter that for years Giuliani used the power of his office to disarm honest American citizens and trample the Second Amendment?

For example, Gun Owners of America has this to say about Rudy Giuliani's track record on gun control: "[T]he record shows that the Mayor continually tried to export his gun control agenda to the rest of the nation.

"In 1993, before even being sworn in as mayor, Giuliani met with then-President Clinton at the White House to discuss national gun registration. Giuliani supported the Brady bill, which had recently passed, but argued that it didn't go far enough.

"The President, largely crediting Giuliani for the idea, enthusiastically sent Attorney General Janet Reno off to develop a gun licensing and registration system . . . .

"In May of 1994, as the battle over the ban on certain semi-automatic firearms reached its height, Giuliani threw his support behind the ban. On the eve of the final vote, he noted that so-called assault weapons 'have no legitimate purpose.'"

When the ban passed, Giuliani commented that, 'This is an important step towards curtailing the indiscriminate proliferation of guns across the nation.'"

Is this the kind of "law and order" that Christian conservatives expect from their elected leaders today? If so, they should throw away the Bill of Rights and embrace the Communist Manifesto, because the latter more closely mirrors Giuliani's brand of law and order.

Dear fellow Christians, please wake up! Gun control is not a secondary issue. Runaway, out-of-control federal spending is not a secondary issue. The invasion of America by millions of illegal aliens is not a secondary issue. The creation of a North American Community, which integrates the governments of Mexico, Canada, and the United States, is not a secondary issue. The NAFTA superhighway currently being constructed is not a secondary issue. The abuse of our Bill of Rights under the Patriot Act is not a secondary issue. The blatant disregard for constitutional government by our elected leaders is not a secondary issue.

There is more to a candidate's qualification for public office than his or her opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Are we really so shallow and undiscerning that we cannot see what our political and corporate leaders are doing to our country? Do we not recognize evil when we see it? Do we really think that we can ignore these issues and not pay the consequences?

We are in desperate need of leaders who will distinguish themselves as standing foursquare on the fundamental principles upon which America was founded. We need leaders who will respect the U.S. Constitution and who will aggressively stop the invasion taking place across our southern border. We need leaders who will rein in federal spending and reduce the size and scope of the federal government. We need leaders who will refuse to allow the United States to be integrated into a North American Community of any kind.

And most of all, we need Christian conservatives to wake up to what is going on in this country, and to stop trying to grovel before the neocons in the Republican Party, and to start acting like real conservatives again.

(c) Chuck Baldwin

2007-05-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

By now you have heard that I'm moving back to Munday, Texas, my hometown. And I'm buying a house there. It needs a little work before it's livable, but I'll have it in shape in no time. No, this is not the house. Had you going for a little bit didn't I.

This is a house I've driven by countless times on trips to Abilene or from Abilene. It sits on the north side of the curve on the north side of Anson. In the early years of my travels the house was occupied and I thought it was a nice-looking house in those years. It has since been abandoned and allowed to fall apart. Did you ever think about houses have personalities and hearts? I think they do. Haven't you noticed as long as someone lives in a house the house does its best to stay together for those who live in it. But when the same house is abandoned it slowly decays and falls apart. For some reason it's hard for the owner to take them down. I've never been in that situation so I can't speak from experience. You reckon that's why we see so many old house sitting around, falling down. Often there will be a new brick home not far away. The old home place has memories that might be lost if it were torn down.

I am moving back to Munday. When I'm not sure. I have a lot to do to my Fort Worth place before I can put it on the market. Lauren, my daughter-in-law says it has to pass her inspection before I can put it on the market. Anyway the move should happen sometime in the summer. I pray that it will happen sometime in the summer.

I'll run a picture of the house I'm actually buying in my next posting.

Take care now.

bvn

2007-04-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

It never ends...

Whenever your kids are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children.

After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said was: "Don't"

"Don't what?" Adam replied.

"Don't eat the forbidden fruit," God said.

"Forbidden fruit? We got forbidden fruit? Hey, Eve, we got forbidden fruit!"

"No way!"

"Yes way!"

"Don't eat that fruit!" said God.

"Why?"

"Because I am your Father and I said so," said God, wondering why he hadn't stopped after making the elephants. A few minutes later God saw his kids having an apple break and was angry.

"Didn't I tell you not to eat the fruit?" the First Parent asked.

"Uh huh, " Adam replied.

"Then why did you?"

"I dunno" Eve answered.

"She started it!" Adam said.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"DID NOT!!"

Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own. Thus the pattern was set and it has never changed.

But there is reassurance in this story. If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give them wisdom and they haven't taken it, don't be hard on yourself. If God had trouble handling children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you?

Advice for the day:
If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: Take two and keep away from the children.

2007-04-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Charlie Daniels Says it Like it Is

I don’t know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.

I don’t blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly wonderful place. But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal it is flat out wrong and I don’t care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

I don’t need sensitivity lessons, in fact I don’t have anything against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal and if you don’t believe it try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get. What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it’s tantamount to saying, "I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there’s nothing you can do about it.

"It’s an "in your face" action and speaking just for me, I don’t like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn’t be happening.

Where are you, you bunch of lily livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water out of the Potomac again? And even if you pass a bill on immigration it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won’t mean anything anyway Besides, what good is another law going to do when you won’t enforce the ones on the books now?

And what ever happened to the polls, guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger wetters. Well you sure ain’t paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want something done about this mess, and mess it is and getting bigger everyday.This is no longer a problem, it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can’t happen here when the businesses who hire these people finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets?

If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit. But I guess that doesn’t matter as long as you get re-elected.
Shame on you! One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians) you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you.

Well I’ve been pounded by the media before and I’m still rockin’ and rollin’ and when it comes to speaking the truth I fear not. And the truth is that the gutless, gonadless, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to face reality.

And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegal in this country and turn around and say, "Oh it’s ok, ya’ll can stay here if you’ll just allow us to slap your wrist."And I know that some of you who read this column are saying, "Well what’s wrong with that?" I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don’t know who they are, where they are or what they’re up to and the way the Congress is going we’re not going to.

Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is, must we subsidize their labor as well? If these people were from Haiti would we be so fast to turn a blind eye to them or if they were from Somalia or Afghanistan? I think not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don’t show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS 13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don’t tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegal some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions:

No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre.

No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.I don’t know about you but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, "I don’t care who I make mad and I don’t care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I’m going to lead the fight to get it straightened out." I don’t blame anybody for wanting to come to America , but if you don’t respect our immigration laws why should you respect any others? And by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes. Please get that other one out of my face.

God Bless America
Charlie Daniels

Yep! I passed it on...I’m sorry, but after hearing they want to sing OUR National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough! Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Japanese, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German, Portuguese, Greek, French, or any other language because of immigration.

It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written. The news broadcasts even gave the translation - not even close.
Sorry if this offends anyone, but this is MY COUNTRY. IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY, SPEAK UP!

I am not against immigration - just come through like everyone else Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes; live by the rules; and LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past and GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Think about this:
If you don’t want to forward this for fear of offending someone,YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

Will we still be the Country of choice and still be America if we continue to make the changes forced on us by people from other countries who came to live in America because it is the Country of Choice?

Think about it!All we have to say is, when will someone do something about MY RIGHTS? We’ve gone so far the other way, bent over backwards to not offend anyone, that I am now being offended. But it seems no one has a problem with that.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Polish, Italian, French, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!"

In God We Trust" is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women - on Christian principles - founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. It is Time for America to Speak up. If you agree - pass this along; if you don’t agree - delete it!

Editor’s Note:
What would you like to add to this article and the opinion of someone else who forwarded the article? I have never known in my life time such a wimpy, voiceless, lazy America. Have we all become clones of the establishment? Do we all really want globalism? If you don’t know anything about globalism, it’s time you did some work for yourself and your family and and find out -- FOR YOURSELF -- what globalism entails. Don’t listen to the media, globalism owns the media. Or least the people who are pushing globalism owns the media business. They own all the big businesses of the world. One world government. One world church. One world schools. One big world-wide police force, working under the flag of the United Nations. But you need to research this on your own. You will believe more of what you read for yourself.

Charlie is right, this is only the beginning. Soon there will be Mexican trucks rolling on the Trans-America Highway to Canada and points north. We won’t have enough police to check out each truck. God only knows what those trucks will bring across our borders. But can’t you imagine -- drugs for starters, explosives, human slaves.

Stand up America. America was once a respected country. Why? Just think long and hard about that why. You know, deep down, what has happened, but you don’t want to get envolved in something that would take some your time. When the U.S. becomes a slave-producer-nation of the U.N., what will your time be worth? Forget it, you won’t have the freedom of your time anyway.

People, that is the New Age Plan for the future. The New Age philosophy is behind the U.N. And the Committee on Foreign Relations. And several other secret organizations.

Charlie was wrong about one thing -- it’s aleady PAST time to take action.
Sleep well tonight. It could be our last as free Americans.

BVN

2007-04-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

Classroom Desks

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of her classroom.

The kids came into first period and there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Ms. Cothren, where’s our desks?"

And she said, "You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

"Well, maybe it’s our grades," they said.

"No," she said.

"Is it our behavior."

"No, it’s not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing; third period, same thing.

By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren’s class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her classroom.

The last period of the day Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily," she said, "Now I’m going to tell you."

Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The veterans placed the desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing the desks, the kids, for the first time, perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Martha said, "You don’t have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them in here for you, but it’s up to you to sit here responsibly to learn, to be good students and good citizens. They paid a price for you to have that desk, don’t ever forget it."

My friend, sometimes we forget where freedoms we have come from, not because of politicians. The freedoms are ours because of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. People who loved this country more than life itself. These people earned a school desk for a kid at the Robinson High School in Little Rock. But they also made it possible for all of us to enjoy this great land we call home, this wonderful nation that we better love enough to protect and preserve with the same kind of conservative, solid values and principles that made us a great nation.

"We live in the Land of the Free because of the brave."

Remember our Troops...

Your friends are close to you. Keep them that way.
Each smile you give is a powerful message of friendship and love.

Thanks to Bobbie Fortin

2007-04-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States, especially in the minority races!!!

Allah or The Lord Jesus Christ?

By Rick Mathes

Last month I attended my annual training session that’s required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their beliefs.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video.

After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.

When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: "Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in heaven.

If that’s the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?"

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, "Non-believers!"

I responded, "So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven. Is that correct?"

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of "a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar."

He sheepishly replied, "Yes."

I then said, "Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!"

The Imam was speechless!

I continued, "I also have a problem with being your ‘friend’ when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me! Let me ask you another question. Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?"

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Editors note:

Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the ‘Diversification’ training seminar were not happy with Rick’s way of dealing with the Islamic Imam and exposing the truth about the Muslims’ beliefs.

In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. To elect the President! Everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the liberal justice system, liberal media and the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized.

Please pass this on to all your e-mail contacts. This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known worker in prison ministry.

The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. First, he must stand up.

If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

2007-04-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

Don't try this at home.

It will knock your socks off.

Thanks to anonymous for the lovely comment on the photo of flowers. I borrowed the photo from the web. So I am hereby passing the comment on, with thanks.

Aren't pictures wonderful? They help so much to liven up a layout. Sometimes a picture will tell the story all by itself, like this one. It shouts, Don't Do That.

2007-04-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

Puppy love. To Do.

Reminds me, I need a hug. Have you had yours today?

Please read the article below by Chuck Baldwin. His articles are all so good, so right on the mark, and so welcome, that I cannot help printing them in this space. I couldn't have done as good myself, that's for sure.

I believe he has his finger on a problem of gigantic proportions in his critique of the Religious Right. They have lost it, completely. It's as if they have been blinded by something. Or, are have they been deceived by the antichrist? Is one of their number the antichrist?

The times are wierd. Strange things are happening all over the world. The Christian must be watchful of all these things. I believe somewhere in all these happenings are clues to the end times. If we are not careful we will miss them. What, are you talking about? The Committee on Foreign Relations, is one thing. How many of you know anything about this secret group? How many of you are really up on what all this talk about globalism means? Consider this homework and learn all you can about these two subjects. I guarantee as you look you will run across some other, equally interesting subjects. And study up on the population growth and its future. This is another interesting area. Immigration may change the future population growth for the U.S. The world population is increasing, not because people are breeding like rabbits, but because they have stopped dying like flies. In the U.S., people born in 1970 had a life expectancy of 70 years. In 1993 it was 76 years. By 2050 it will be 82 years.

Until the mid 90s, almost every third baby conceived in America was killed by abortion. A figure of 1,800,000 a year during that time for total abortions. The leading cause of death in the U.S. is abortion. It's similar in every country where abotion is legal.

With heavy immigration we see a progressive change in ethnicity, the U.S. is becoming more Hispanic -- Germany, France, Italy, Greece, and Israel more Muslim. Russia probably has the lowest birth rate, routinely killking two in abourtion for every one born in its non-Muslim areas. Add poor medical care, sky-high alcoholism, and poverty, life expectancy for me has dropped to 57 years. Every year Russia is burying about one million more people than are being born.

If current trends in declining fertility continue as they are now, the world population could peak at 7.5 billion in 2040. It will then drop by 120 million a year through 2050. After this, it will decline about 30 percent per generation. (U.N. Division, World Pop Estimates and Projections, 1998).

About AIDS? Its total impact is only beginning to be felt. Worldwide, over 40 milliono are infected and 11 million have died. Current rapid increase in infection tell us that this scourge has only begun.

There's a lot to think about.

Be blessed and pass it on.

buddy

2007-04-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

James Dobson

Just Doesn't Get It

By Chuck Baldwin

April 3, 2007

This column is archived at http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070403.html

Please know that I cut my eyeteeth as a political activist with the so-called Religious Right. I was the Florida Moral Majority Executive Director and participated in numerous local and national meetings that featured the Religious Right's most eminent spokesmen. My personal history with the Religious Right goes back more than thirty years.

That said, it is my studied opinion that many, if not most, of our national conservative Christian leaders have lost touch with the reality of our nation's ills and how to cure them. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that they have become either perilously shallow and unthinking or myopically focused upon their own success. Either way, the leadership being provided by this once-great group of champions seems to be seriously deficient in both discernment and resolve.

For example, just last week, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson laid an egg of gigantic proportions when he brazenly proclaimed to U.S. News & World Report senior editor Dan Gilgoff that Republican presidential aspirant Fred Thompson was not "a Christian."

In an attempt to smooth over Dobson's gaffe, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger said that Dobson "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian-someone who openly talks about his faith."

This debacle might seem like an insignificant misstatement by the Christian radio guru, but it's not. It represents the kind of shallowness and naïveté that has come to dominate the Religious Right.Schneeberger accurately articulated the thinking of James Dobson and many conservative Christians today: In order for a politician to be acceptable, he must be someone who "openly talks about his faith."

Understand, too, that shortly after the moral recklessness of President Bill Clinton, it would have been necessary to include another requirement: an acceptable candidate must be one who keeps his pants zipped up. However, this is no longer a litmus test for the Religious Right, as I will demonstrate in a moment.

How is it that Christian conservatives have come to put so much stock in the religious rhetoric of a politician on the campaign trail? How is it that they expect a candidate, especially a presidential candidate, to "openly talk about his faith?"

Please recall that it did not do Jimmy Carter much good to openly talk about his faith. The Religious Right was almost unified in its opposition to Carter. However, the ultimate hero of the Religious Right, Ronald Reagan, was never known to carry his religion on his sleeve. He was not one who "openly talked about his faith."

It has been the George W. Bush presidency that has helped turn the minds of Christian conservatives away from a politician's actions and policies to his or her rhetoric. Bush has been given a free pass (by Christian conservatives) on his unconstitutional, liberal, big-spending, socialistic, and imperialistic policies, because he "openly talks about his faith.

"Never mind that President Bush's presidency more resembles Bill Clinton's than it does Ronald Reagan's. Never mind that if George W. Bush did not have an "R" behind his name, one would assume that he was a protégé of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Because Bush "openly talks about his faith," he is accepted, defended, and lauded by the Religious Right.

If that is not shallow, I don't know what is.

Illustrating further the depth of Dobson's shallowness is the way he and other leaders of the Religious Right are treating the philanderer Newt Gingrich. Dobson told Gilgoff that the former House Speaker was "the brightest guy out there" and "the most articulate politician on the scene today." Jerry Falwell added his praise for Gingrich, saying in his Liberty Journal, "He is a true American statesman and a brilliant political innovator." Falwell has also invited Gingrich to be the commencement speaker at the graduating ceremonies at Liberty University this year.

This about a man who has a history as a serial adulterer. A man who used the occasion of his wife's hospitalization for cancer treatments to tell her he was leaving her for another woman with whom he had been having an affair. This about a man who had to be taken to court to pay what was due his abandoned wife. This about a man who was a major culprit in the House Banking Scandal, having written 22 bad checks at taxpayers' expense. This about a man who, just five months ago, brazenly called for the curtailment of free speech. This about a man who, after having orchestrated the GOP revolution of 1994, used the power of the Speaker's office to try and intimidate the conservative House freshmen into compromising their conservative commitment, including trying to force them to support tax increases. This about a man who is a long-standing member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is a think-tank of internationalists working toward global government.

But now Dobson, Falwell, et al. apparently hold Newt Gingrich in the highest regard, with Dobson gushing over him during the very interview when Gingrich admitted his adultery, and Falwell saying that Gingrich has made a "fresh commitment to God." Just in time for the presidential campaign. How convenient!

However, poor Fred Thompson now has the "smell of death" put on him by James Dobson with what is sure to be a ubiquitous moniker, "He is not a Christian." Does James Dobson really believe that it is better to be an admitted adulterer who "openly talks about his faith," than to be a faithful husband who doesn't?

When will conservative Christians wake up? When will they come to understand that when it comes to political office, we are not electing Sunday School teachers? We are electing men and women to do one thing: faithfully discharge their duties to the Constitution of the United States.

What matters more than religious rhetoric is whether or not our elected representatives fulfill their oath of office and obey the Constitution. (Of course, it should be obvious that we cannot be expected to trust a man who has no fidelity to his marriage commitment to be faithful to his commitments to the American people.)

America is in serious trouble, because our political leaders (from both parties) are continually ignoring and overtly disobeying constitutional government. They treat the Constitution (and their loyalty to it) as a pile of dung. This irresponsibility has brought our nation to the brink of the abyss.

We are almost ready to lose our national identity, our culture, our standard of living, and even our military superiority. Our education system is in the toilet. Our manufacturing jobs have almost vanished, our nation is being systematically merged into a "North American Community," and James Dobson's focus seems to be merely that our future president is a man who "openly talks about his faith?

"Obviously, James Dobson just doesn't get it. It would be far better to have an honest, God-fearing man in the White House who is more concerned about faithfully following the Constitution than he is about giving a bunch of religious lip service.

And that means we need to pay far more attention to his record than to his rhetoric. The day that our conservative Christian leaders and pastors wake up to that truth is the day that we can begin to restore this constitutional republic.

NOTE TO THE READER: This email editorial cannot be considered Spam as long as the sender includes contact information and a method of removal. To be removed, see instructions below.

To subscribe to these columns, click on this link and follow the instructions: http://00799fb.netsolhost.com/cwsubx.html

2007-03-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Wild flowers are in bloom.

Have you noticed? I was on I-30 this afternoon, between Oakland and East Chase. Only a few miles, but I noticed more color than I've seen in a while. Grass was green, yeah, I know, wow. The trees were blooming. The bluebonnets were beautiful, especially with that green background. Then there were smaller yellow and white wild flowers. Spring in Texas is just fantastic. Thank you, God, for painting this landscape for us to enjoy.

I think Freddy was even happier today. He was really active. I guess spring brings that out. I have a few pretty weeds in my yard. And with the recent rains everything will grow, just like it's supposed to.

Get out and enjoy it. It will last only a few days.

2007-03-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

Be Careful what you say, I hear they are even bugging fences now. Can you believe what's happening in this country? What would Thomas Jefferson say about the way things are going? President Bush Continues To
Push America Toward A Police State

By Chuck BaldwinJanuary 9, 2007

This column is archived athttp://chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070109.html

President George W. Bush's brand of conservatism is something completely foreign to traditional norms. He has outspent even the most liberal administrations. He has led the nation into undeclared foreign wars under false pretenses. He has bloated the size and scope of the federal government like no president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has consistently promoted "civil unions" for homosexuals. He has increased federal funding for abortion providers at home and abroad. In addition, over the objections of a Republican-controlled Congress, Bush even supported the Clinton gun ban.

However, it is President Bush's preoccupation with turning America into a total surveillance society that separates his administration from any and all others. Before this administration, no conservative president had endorsed the concept of turning the United States into the fulfillment of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but that is exactly what G.W. Bush is attempting to do.

Under the rubric of fighting terrorism, President Bush has done more to strip the American people of constitutionally-protected freedoms than any administration since Abraham Lincoln. The latest example of Bush's tyrannical tendencies comes in the form of his most recent "signing statement." And please understand that President Bush has issued more "signing statements" than any president in history. In fact, before President Reagan, there was a total of only 75 "signing statements" by all previous administrations. Then, Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton issued 247 "signing statements" combined. So far, President George W. Bush has issued 147 "signing statements" that have challenged constitutional restrictions (upon him) to more than 750 statutes. (Source: The Boston Globe)

After signing a postal reform bill called H.R. 6407, the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act," President Bush issued a "signing statement" that declared his (Bush's) right to open the private mail of American citizens without a judge's warrant.According to the New York Daily News, "That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it."

The News continues by saying, "Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail."

'The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,' said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

"Furthermore, a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim said, "You have to be concerned. It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known.

"President Bush's decision to grant himself the power to open private mail without a warrant is similar to what he has done in the recent past. Remember that Bush recently said he had the authority to perform warrantless eavesdropping on the American people.

A total surveillance society is something that Americans heretofore understood to be completely contrary to the principles of liberty. Such a society was reserved for Marxist or Nazi regimes, and was repugnant to all true Americans. No More. President Bush has taken the concept of a surveillance society into the mainstream of America's public life and culture. Sadder still is the fact that there is only a handful of people that seem worried about it, and none of these are conservative Christian leaders.

Since G.W. Bush became president, the American people have lost their Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendment protections. Their phone calls, emails, and even private discussions can be (and are) monitored by federal police agencies without court order. Beyond that, virtually all of their major banking transactions are constantly monitored, as well as their travel and shopping activities.

The Republican Party has demonstrated that it has no inclination to oppose Bush's New World Order, that is for sure. For one thing, the GOP always was, and still is, the party of Big Business. And just who do you think is getting all the high-dollar federal contracts to do all this national snooping? You bet. The GOP's Big Business buddies.

The national conservative Christian leaders have likewise demonstrated a total disregard for Bush's push for an Orwellian society. After all, they have been too busy enjoying the perks and benefits of sitting at the king's table. Plus, they don't have to worry about being the target of Bush's secret police stings. They are part of the "inner circle," don't you know?

That brings it down to the Democrats. What will Nancy Pelosi and company do to slow down this emerging police state juggernaut? Probably not much. She has made reference to the need to restore constitutional safeguards to Washington politics. But we have heard that kind of talk before, haven't we? The track record of the Democratic Party is hardly reassuring. After all, this is the same bunch that took delight in trashing the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In the end, it always comes down to "we the people." Until America's local pastors, local sheriffs, local and state elected officers, and local and state judges begin standing up to this out-of-control federal monstrosity, the slippery slide into fascism will continue. Aw, shucks! I just remembered that most of those people are also on the federal take. Therefore, a return to traditional conservatism is just about out of the question.

Then again, we could do something revolutionary, such as casting aside both major political parties, and start supporting true constitutionalists for a real change in America. The skeleton for such a movement already exists in the form of the Constitution Party. Here is their web site: http://www.constitutionparty.com

One thing is for sure and for certain: we don't need any more "conservatives" like George W. Bush.

(c) Chuck Baldwin

2007-03-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Test your memory....

What is this a picture of? Have you ever experienced of these?

Now go to this sight and test your memory of U.S. geography.
http://www.addictinggames.com/50states.html

2007-03-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

Thoughts to live by

(Thanks to Shirley in Dallas)

1. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

2. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.

3. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

4. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.

5. For high blood pressure sufferers, simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to usea timer.

6. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.

Sometimes, we just need to remember what the rules of life really are: You only need two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

Remember:

* Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

* Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.

* If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You get another chance.

* And finally, be really nice to your family and friends; you never know when you might need them to empty your bedpan.

2007-03-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

Yep, you've seen it before.

This article about the Great Seal is basically a re-write of the first. I have added a lot of new information to this one, however.

I know, I still haven't done everything I said I would do. I will, eventually. I would like to write about the one dollar bill. That's where the different meanings of the symbols come into play.

I am a student again, however, and the reading for my present class will take a lot of my time. I'm working toward a certificate in Family Issues. The first course is Introduction to Pregancy Counseling. And the first book i'm reading is Questions and Answers about Abortion. When I finish the book review I will post it here. I already knew abortion was wrong, but this book, written by a medical doctor and his nurse wife, tell it like it is. And it is awful. There is no doubt in my mind that abortions kill tiny human beings.

I hadn't read it before, but fetuses can feel pain, just like a baby boy can feel circumcision. Humans have not gone far up the ladder of civility.