Friday, October 31, 2014

Weekend Humor

A Favor
I know I haven’t known you very long and I shouldn’t be asking you for this so soon, but I really need it badly.

I haven’t had it for a while and I can already feel it going in good and hard and coming out nice and soft.

If you would do this for me no one would ever know.

I am sure you can satisfy my needs and I’d be very grateful if you would.

I am very desperate and I need your help.

You must think by now that I have a lot of nerve but I can feel my tongue wrapping around it and sucking out all the juices until it’s very dry.

I am not going to beat around the bush any longer so..

Do you have a piece of gum?

Get your minds out of the gutter....Have a groovy weekend!

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Once Again ( Things Don't Add Up)


While we are still waiting to see if the parents of the slain Mike Brown will get justice in Ferguson ,Missouri and Officer Darren Wilson will at least be indicted , there is yet another troubling slaying of a young Black man in nearby St.Louis ,Missouri that just won't go away...

It seems that An independent autopsy has shown that the St. Louis teen, who was shot by an off-duty police officer moonlighting as a private security guard, was hit six times in the backs of his legs.

That would be Vonderrit Myers...In the photo above.

An autopsy shows that 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr., who was fatally shot by an off-duty St. Louis police officer earlier this month, was struck eight times, including six shots from behind, according to the forensic pathologist who performed the independent procedure Thursday. 

Dr. Cyril Wecht told reporters at a news conference that the autopsy suggests that Myers was running away from the officer when he was shot, which matches earlier statements from witnesses who claimed that Myers was fleeing the scene when the officer opened fire, the Associated Press reports.

According to AP, Wecht, "who has investigated the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey, [and] conducted the autopsy at the request of Vonderrit Myers Jr.'s family," also concluded that Myers was shot six times in both legs. A separate shot shattered Myers' femur, and the fatal wound was on the side of the teen's face.

"The evidence shows that the story we've been given by the Police Department does not match up," one of the Myers family's attorneys, Jerryl Christmas, told AP. "There's no evidence that there was a gun battle going on."

Police officials stated that on Oct. 8 an unnamed police officer, who was still in his police uniform as he moonlighted as a private security guard, saw three men standing. He made a U-turn to question the men, and he claims that they then began to run. The officer gave chase and got into a physical altercation with Myers.

I covered this story just a month ago..."Unrest in St. Louis" before all of the facts were released...


Police Chief Sam Dotson stated at a news conference that Myers broke free from the officer, pulled a gun and fired at him. Dotson claims that Myers fired three shots before his gun jammed. Dotson also said that the officer returned fire, shooting some 17 times, AP reports.

St. Louis Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Graham conducted a preliminary autopsy, which, according to AP, found that "Myers was shot six to seven times in the lower extremities, with the fatal shot entering the right cheek. The final autopsy report hasn't been released."

After the news conference, police investigators served Wecht with a subpoena to turn over his autopsy report to a grand jury reviewing the case. A police spokeswoman told AP that any information and evidence regarding the independent autopsy would be included in the investigation for local and federal prosecutors to review.

Lab tests by the Missouri State Highway Patrol reportedly showed gunshot residue on Myers' hand, waistband and shirt, which police have stated is consistent with someone who has fired shots.
The unnamed officer's attorney, Brian Millikan, said the results from the independent autopsy don't discredit the police officer's version of the incident. "It's absolutely consistent with what the officer told the investigators from early on," said Millikan, a former St. Louis police officer. "There were no shots fired when [Myers] was running away. That's simply not true."

According to Millikan, the autopsy shows that Myers was shot in the backs of the legs, but the attorney claims that those shots occurred after Myers had been hit and was lying on the ground with the gun in his hand.

"He was propped up on his left elbow, and his legs were facing out at the policeman as he went down, but he was still holding the gun and pointing it at the policeman," Millikan told AP.
The shooting rubbed raw wounds that had not healed from the nearby fatal shooting in Ferguson, Mo., of unarmed teen Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson. According to AP, "a grand jury is expected to decide by mid-November whether criminal charges will be filed against Wilson."

And the racial beat goes on!


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Whatever Happened to that Anti -Obama Law Suit?


Whatever happened to that Anti Obama Lawsuit that so many Republican lawmakers were so adamnant about?? Huh?

You remember we first learned back on June 24, That was more than four months ago, about the House Republican plan to file a lawsuit against President Obama. Two weeks later, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced the basis for the case: the GOP would sue to implement an obscure provision of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans don’t actually want to see implemented.
When the case was announced, congressional Republicans made it seem as if they were headed to court as part of a bold move to preserve our constitutional system of government against the tyrannical moves of a lawless presidency. But four months later, it looks as if Boehner & Co. got lost on the way to the courthouse.
Well guess what?? Josh Gerstein reports that the case hasn’t even been filed yet.
That's right...For all that talk and bluster...They never filed it...You know why? Because any judge in his right mind would throw that out of court with a quickness and have to go home for the day because he was laughing so hard!

 


"It takes about 10 minutes to walk from the Capitol to the federal courthouse just down the hill, but House Republicans haven’t managed to make that trip in the four months since they announced they’d be suing the president.
House Speaker John Boehner came out swinging hard last June when he announced that his chamber would take President Barack Obama to court. The suit, charging that the president grossly exceeded his constitutional authority by failing to implement portions of the Obamacare law, was billed as an election-season rallying point for aggrieved Republicans. But days before the midterms, the House’s legal guns seem to have fallen silent.
Lawyers close to the process said they originally expected the legal challenge to be filed in September, but now they don’t expect any action before the elections." said
Josh Gerstein.
 

Republicans not only won’t file the case, they also refuse to say why they won’t file the case – party officials refused to explain the delay when asked by Politico for comment.
I thought this was a constitutional crisis and the republic was in jeopardy because Obama overstepped his bounds. Now, they can’t even get around to filing it?” former Democratic House Counsel Stan Brand told Gerstein. “It, to me, emphasizes the not-serious nature of it.”
This arguably understates matters.
 
I just told you why they won't file this...They don't want to be laughing stocks...They know that there is no true merit to it.



 
Simon Lazarus and Elisabeth Stein had this striking report over the weekend:
When, back in July, Speaker John Boehner secured House authorization to file suit against President Obama for “changing the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law,” cynical Democrats derided the planned litigation as a “political stunt,” a talking point for the fall campaign playbook. But a report by the apolitical Congressional Research Service (CRS), completed on September 4, but never released by the member who sponsored it, nor mentioned in the press, indicates that the Democrats were not cynical enough.
Now, three months after the party-line House vote to green-light the lawsuit, no complaint has yet been filed. If this stretched out delay means that Boehner has actually redirected his sue-Obama gambit toward oblivion, the reason may be this unnoticed six week old CRS report.


The non-partisan CRS, which effectively serves as Congress’ in-house think tank, found that the case is built on a faulty premise and would not succeed. Lazarus and Stein added that the CRS was apparently requested by Republicans “to give some color of legitimacy to their charges of rampant presidential illegality.” When the findings offered proof of the opposite, Republicans buried it. “[T]he result validates the lawyers’ maxim not to ask a question when unsure of the likely answer,” Lazarus and Stein noted.
This GOP stunt was always rather pathetic. Now, however, the charade appears to be over.


 

As should have been obvious all along, Republicans were never serious about this litigation. GOP officials were so wholly invested in a ridiculous talking point – our rascally president has transformed into a dictator – they saw a lawsuit as a way to bolster a misguided public-relations campaign.
But it quickly backfired. The basis for the lawsuit was hard to take seriously; the case was going to cost American taxpayers money Republicans claim we don’t have; it actually motivated the Democratic base in an election year; the narrow focus of the suit only helped reinforce the belief that the entire p.r. push was a baseless sham; and even the Congressional Research Service told GOP lawmakers not to bother.
 

The “constitutional crisis” was an election-year mirage, touted by con artists. Republicans may go through with the litigation anyway – after the election, that is, once they’re no longer worried about a political backlash for their partisan antics – but as we were reminded a month ago, the case isn’t likely to go well.


It’s not too late for Boehner to concede this was a bad idea from the start. Republicans can save us some time and aggravation, give up on the case, and play some other silly game.
 
I'm sure they will!  Stay tuned!


Friday, October 24, 2014

Weekend Humor

Between 18 and 20 a woman is like Africa, half discovered, half wild, naturally beautiful with fertile deltas.

Between 21 and 30 a woman is like America, well developed and open to trade especially for someone with cash.

Between 31 and 35 she is like India, very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 36 and 40 a woman is like France. Gently aging but still a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between 41 and 50 she is like Yugoslavia, lost the war - haunted by past mistakes. Massive reconstruction is now necessary.

Between 51 and 60, she is like Russia, very wide and borders are unpatrolled. The frigid climate keeps people away.

Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Mongolia, with a glorious and all conquering past but alas, no future.

After 70, they become Afghanistan. Most everyone knows where it is, but no one wants to go there.


Hmmmm...Everyone have a groovy weekend!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Keith's Favorite Quotes

An Amazing woman, An Amazing writer and one of my truly favorite quotes!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

5 - 5 Facebook and Twitter Statuses People Need To Stop Right Now!

Haven't done one of these posts in a hot minute...

Here are five things people do on Facebook and Twitter that simply drive me crazy!

1.The Vague and Shocking post or tweet- Examples-“Going to the Hospital”, "Going to The Emergency ward" “Totaled my car” Look,If you’re going to the hospital or you have just been in any kind of automobile accident of some sort, you probably shouldn’t be making a status or tweet about it. This is certainly not a good way to tell your friends and family about something bad that has happened to you. If you’re well enough to post on fb or twitter, Chances are,you can make a phone call.

2.The Dramatic and Sudden Cliff Hanger...
Examples-"I'm so depressed" , "I'm so sick of people"..."I can't today..."Ugh".."FMl"
You obviously want people to ask  you what’s going on. About 5% of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers will die from curiosity and cave in to ask you what’s up, but the other 95% of us know you’re being intentionally vague for attention. It’s annoying. Stop it please.

3.The "Friend" Dump -
This happens on Facebook news feed a lot...Drives me up the fricken wall... Example- "
“Just cleaned out my friends list, if you’re reading this, congrats!”
Wow thanks, I’m so ..so friggen glad you kept me on your friends list so I can continue to read your pointless statuses. Silently Deletes. Silly rabbit...Tricks are for kids.

4.Too Many Damn Updates...
It's a minute to minute thing with you.....Examples-"Going to the toilet" ,Going to bed”, “Time for a shower”, “Laundry is so boring”..
Come onnnnnnnn...You're killing me and you are BORING!!! What is the actual point of this? Who are you talking to? There is a reason you have no "likes" and no comments on this status.

5.The Private Message- Example-"I sure wish people would stop talkin about me behind my back.."  "This is for my haters.."  , "See me in the street"
Oh shuttttt up already!  Why do you need to post it all over Facebook? or Twitter?? These statuses are clearly directed at someone in particular. Talk to them. Say it to their face!! This is a waste of my news feed.

In closing , all of us may have been guilty of one or more of these offenses...Now that you know better, Do better!

Monday, October 20, 2014

OOPS! (I lost 40,000 Registrations!)

Next time the Republicans want to justify Black and Latino people getting proper photo identification to stave off possible voter fraud...Just bring up Republican and Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp...

He seems to have uh, lost 40,000 registrations....I can't make this stuff up...

In September, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp expressed concern that too many minority voters were registering to vote for the November midterms and so he found it necessary to subpoena the records of at least one group working to register more Black and Latino voters.

Now he has gone and "lost" 40,000 voter registration forms handed in by one group..Coincidence???
My Grandmother always told me that there were few coincidences in this world.

According to an Al-Jazeera report, it’s a sentiment that the staffers at Third Sector Development are expressing. The nonprofit organization was on a mission to register as many black and Hispanic people in the state of Georgia as possible so that voter turnout for the upcoming midterm elections in November would be high. And they were successful at it, until they received word that about half of the applications they submitted for processing have gone missing in action. “Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000 voter-registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state’s office—but as of last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of those 40,000-plus applications." according to state Rep. Stacey Adams, a Democrat,”


Al-Jazeera explained. But Secretary Kemp says "Hey, we're not doing anything differently." Sure they're not.

Georgia Secretary of State Brain Kemp explained that his office is not doing anything differently from how it usually processes applications.

 But some people aren’t buying his story, seeing as how he’s a Republican, and black and Hispanic people tend to vote for Democrats in most elections.

 Georgia Republicans have been raising eyebrows for some time now with regard to early voting and voter-ID issues.

One state Republican didn’t like how black and Hispanic voters had easy access to early-voting opportunities. They cut early voting, they've got horrible Voter ID laws, and now the Secretary of State has 40,000 less voter registration forms than were submitted. Jim Crow is alive and well in Georgia and surrounds, isn't it?

Seems like it to me... Now the question is...With four weeks left until the mid-term elections..What will be done about this?

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Something To Think About


Dallas Hot Zone


You know last week Sarah Palin was quoted as saying that President Obama should "invade Ebola"   At first I thought this was a joke...I was giving her the benefit of the doubt that even she is not that stupid...but it turns out she did say that...She was however mispronouncing the name of some country and momentarily got it confused with the disease...

See, this is why education is important!

Sarah Palin not withstanding...Ebola...The Ebola Virus seems to be the hot story of the year and seems to be scare worthy...

Political leaders warned yesterday that there could be more cases of Ebola in Dallas in coming days, as this city continues to feel the consequences of a local hospital’s problem-plagued effort to treat the first case of the disease diagnosed in the U.S.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday that a second health-care worker had contracted the disease from Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man found to have Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Sept. 30. The nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, was among those who treated Mr. Duncan before he died Oct. 8.
 
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Dallas leaders sought to play down public fears about the spread of Ebola in the nation’s ninth-largest city, noting that all transmissions of the disease so far have been limited to health-care workers at the one hospital. But they acknowledged that more cases were now likely.
 
“It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said.
 
Another nurse who treated Mr. Duncan, Nina Pham, 26 years old, was also infected while caring for Mr. Duncan and is now being treated at the hospital, which said Wednesday that she was in good condition. Health officials and the hospital haven’t determined how she became infected, and have said she was wearing a mask, gown, shield and gloves when treating Mr. Duncan.
 
But the second case reinforced concerns about the safeguards the hospital had used to shield workers from potential infection as it treated a late-stage Ebola patient in an isolation ward, uncharted territory for a general American hospital. Seventy-five additional health-care workers who helped treat Mr. Duncan are now actively being monitored for potential Ebola symptoms.
 
A federal health-care agency said Wednesday it was reviewing allegations raised by a nurses union that the Dallas hospital mishandled Mr. Duncan’s case, putting patients and health-care workers at risk.
 
David Wright, deputy regional administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Dallas, said it was “closely evaluating and reviewing” the allegations made by National Nurses United on behalf of what it said were an unnamed number of nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
 
The union, which doesn’t represent nurses at the hospital, released a statement Tuesday evening it said was made by the group of nurses, which described an atmosphere of chaos and changing safety guidelines among hospital staff as they treated Mr. Duncan.

The statement said Mr. Duncan was initially left for several hours in an area where other patients were present when he was first admitted to the hospital, even though he was a suspected Ebola case. Nurses also claimed that some nurses had to interact with him with insufficient protective gear, during a period when he had “copious amounts of diarrhea and vomiting,” and that hospital officials allowed nurses who treated Mr. Duncan to subsequently tend to other patients, the statement said.
 
“There was no event preparedness on what to do with the patient. There was no protocol. There was no system,” said Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United. “The nurses were asked to call the infectious disease department.
 
"The infectious disease department did not have clear policies to provide either.”
Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer for the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources, said in a news conference Wednesday morning that he couldn’t discuss the various claims made about what occurred during Mr. Duncan’s treatment. But he acknowledged that “it is clear that there was an exposure, sometime, somewhere.”
 
By dawn yesterday, in a scene now familiar to Dallas citizens, police and other officials were walking the neighborhood of the latest health-care worker to contract Ebola, preparing to decontaminate her apartment and letting neighbors know that someone living near them had tested positive for the virus.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the county’s top elected official, pleaded Wednesday for people to support the hospital’s health-care workers, who are now anxious about the possibility that they too will contract Ebola.
 
“Like Nina Pham, this is a heroic person,” Judge Jenkins said of Ms. Vinson, adding, “I hope this community will rally around the human beings that are suffering.”
 
I hate to agree with Sarah Palin on anything...but maybe it's time the government mobilized and invaded EBOLA!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Bought Lessons

In my short time on this Earth ,depending on how old you are or how you look at it...I have learned many lessons...I share them with you every month in my "What I've Learned " posts..

I was thinkin g about my mother this morning when I woke up....Thinking of her and other members of my family no longer with me was not a pause to feel sad, but a pause to smile...So many of them taught me so many things sometimes just by the example of their lives that helped shape me somewhat into who I became.

The lesson my mother and my aunt Jean taught me that resonates the most is that...There is no lesson quite like a bought lesson.

A bought Lesson is a lesson that cost you something...It might not always be money, but something...your dignity, your well being...That is the lesson, my mother said that you are most likely to remember...That is the mistake you won't repeat....because it cost you something...

I learned one of those bought lessons the way I always learned it when I was a young man...The hard way...

Let me take you back to the summer of 1975....If you wern't alive then....Read up on it...I was 17, had a little summer job up on Woodland Avenue at the Social Security Office...I wore a white shirt and a tie to work in the morning...and my mother had just stopped short of putting vaseline on my face in the morning the way my grandmother did when I was a baby...Which is why I look like I'm shining in all of those early photos of me..(The Shining Negro)

I was making close to $200.00 every two weeks..Which in 1975 was pretty good money for a teenager..(Hell it was a nice piece of change for some adults then) I was about six feet, one and a quarter inches...and thought I was cute...

There was a guy named Danny White who worked me (Not to be mistaken for one of my uncle's brothers with the same name...)

Anyway Danny White was the delight of all of the ladies who worked in that office...He had the flyest clothes and seemed to be the epitome of cool...He was about a good six years older than me...And had a car...

This was the guy who I thought I might one day be....He gave me a ride home from work one day and he met my mother....She could see right through him...and she said to me...\
"Don't pattern yourself after that jitterbug..."

Jitterbug was her name for hipsters, hoodlums and generally undesirables....It was a term that made me laugh most of the time...

Anyway...Danny White told me that he bought all of his clothes from a store that was on the corner of 60th and Market called Chinn's or more accurately..Chinn's fabulous Clothier..

There was nothing fabulous about these clothes now that I look back except that they were cheap...cheap in price and cheap in quality...I had bought a pair of slacks from there before and my Aunt Jean and my Aunt Vivian ,who lived near 60th Street at the time had seen me and had chided me ...

"Don't waste your money in there...Those are cheap clothes and the seams will be out of them before you know it..." they said..

But in my mind...They didn't know what they were talking about...They sewed for a living, they knew quality...but that just went right over my head...

Danny White said that he bought his clothes from there, so that was gospel...Nothing for me to do but drop $150.00 in Chinns...I got five pair of slacks, five loud shirts and I think a pair of socks...  I spent another ten dollars buying an Isley Brothers album and the new Ojays album on 52nd street and then spent the rest getting tokens so I could get to work...

My parents, unlike other parents didn't take a part of my money that I made...Whatever I earned at this job..I kept and basically could spend it anyway I wanted to within reason...To be honest...I wasn't a complete asshole...I did bank a great deal of my money...I had a little PSFS account..(Remember them?)

This time ,my mother said-'Go ahead Mr. Big Shot...Look at you....Did you get those clothes from that man on 60th Street ?"(That's not actually what she said...but I won't print it in the spirit of political correctness!)

I said -"Yeah..What a bargain!" and she just laughed..."Didn't your Aunt Jean tell you about him?  You hard headed...A hard head makes what?" she said.

I didn't answer...I had heard this practically everyday of my life...

I wore one pair of the pants and the loudest shirt at least two times...Then I put them in the cleaners...This combo was clearly my favorite...I was saving it for a special occassion...

You can imagine my horror after I got them out of the cleaners and put them on and was preparing to go out and the pants legs were up over my ankles and the shirt was
very tight...or "young" as my mother would say....

I tried the other pants on...they had shrunk too and the stitching was coming out..and all of the shirts had faded or had shrunk...

I WAS MORTIFIED...AND LIVID!!!

I demanded that my mother go up to that store and rip that man, a new one!!!

She laughed...

"I'm not going up there, I told you not to buy from him in the first place..."she said.

"He ripped me off...I'm out of $150.00..."I protested..

"Yes you are...Now what did you learn from this...?" she asked...

"I should always listen to my mother and my aunts."I said trying to be funny...

"No..You should always buy quality,rather than quantity...You get what you pay for..You bought cheap clothes and you got cheap clothes.."she said.

"But I'm still out of $150..00 dollars..."I said.

"That's a $150.00 lesson...a costly lesson....but a lesson just the same." she said.

For the next two weeks I felt the effects of that lesson...I had no lunch money...I had to make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches or Ham and Cheese sandwiches for lunch...Couldn't go to the food carts like my friends...and had no spare change......

I kept looking at Danny White... He couldn't have been buying his clothes at that clip joint..He had been pulling my leg.....Damnnn how uncool...He had to be secretly laughing at me behind my back...Either that or he never washed or dry cleaned his clothes...

I found out the truth sometimes later..It was worse..He was ordering his clothes off of the back of the TV Guide...(How many of you remember that?) and even they were of a better grade than those cheap clothes sold at Chinns..

I shake my head and laugh now when I think of that bought lesson I learned..

Danny White died some years ago...and I recall being at the funeral and hearing some woman say...

"I sho hope somebody bought him a decent suit and didn't bury him in one of those cheap suits that he used to promenade around here in...."

I was at the repass and nearly spit my drink out...I laughed and looked up at the sky...

Where-ever she is..My mother was somewhere saying..

"See...I told you so."

Monday, October 13, 2014

Unrest in St. Louis


It's been that type of summer....You know the kind they used to call the long hot ones....I'm not talking about temperature...I'm talking about emotional and racial climate...

We are still keeping a strong vigil on St. Louis suburb ,Ferguson,even if the national media has slacked off of it..We still want officer Darren Wilson, accused of shooting unarmed Michael Brown held accountable...And people in Ferguson are still holding mass protests daily....

But now in the neighboring big city of St. Louis..there is yet another situation in which a black teenager has been killed by a policeman...

An off-duty St. Louis police officer shot and killed a black teenager Wednesday evening, triggering protests in a metropolitan area that has been rattled by sometimes violent unrest after a high-profile police shooting in August.

The 32-year-old white officer was working as a private security guard when he shot and killed Vonderrit Myers Jr. , 18, following an alleged struggle and after the teen allegedly fired a pistol at the officer, according to Col. Sam Dotson, the chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

The officer wasn’t identified by the department. The officer, a six-year veteran of the department, was patrolling the city’s Shaw neighborhood when he saw three men acting suspiciously, Col. Dotson said at a news conference hours after the shooting.

St. Louis officers working these types of security jobs are authorized to wear their uniforms and carry their department-issued weapons.

When approached by the officer, the men fled and the officer chased them, first in his vehicle, then on foot. One of the men stopped and approached the officer in what Col. Dotson described as an “aggressive manner” while the officer yelled at the teenager, telling him to stop and that he was under arrest, Col. Dotson said. The two then began fighting and the officer pulled off the teenager’s gray hooded sweatshirt before the teen turned to run from the officer, he said.

As the teen ran, he turned and fired three shots from a Ruger 9mm pistol before the officer returned fire, the police chief said. Mr. Myers’s pistol jammed, yet he didn’t drop the weapon and kept attempting to fire, according to Col. Dotson. The officer eventually shot and killed the teen, firing 17 rounds. Col. Dotson said he didn’t know why the officer fired more than a dozen rounds at Mr. Myers.

At this point, does it even matter?

If this story is true...Then the officer may have been within his rights to return fire...This teen was armed and about to fire at him....Different from Mike Brown...who was unarmed...

The officer said that he saw Mr. Myers was armed with a handgun, but that the officer didn’t immediately shoot, only returning fire in defense, according to a police statement Thursday. Police recovered the Ruger pistol and spent casings at the scene, Col. Dotson said. The police statement noted that the pistol had been reported stolen nearly two weeks ago.

But....The teenager’s family said he was unarmed and was only holding a sandwich when shot, according to Maxine Franks, reached by phone, who said she was the teen’s aunt. His immediate family wasn’t available for comment. Big difference between a sandwich and a gun!

The teen was “no stranger to law enforcement,” according to Col. Dotson, who said that even in the short time the teen had been an adult, he had accumulated a police record.Again different from Mike Brown in Ferguson, who had no priors...

At the time of his death, Mr. Myers was awaiting trial for a felony charge of carrying a concealed weapon, according to documents from the City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office. In June he had been a passenger in a vehicle chased by police.

When the vehicle stopped, Mr. Myers allegedly ran from the officer and, while being chased, allegedly threw a concealed .380-caliber pistol into a sewer. The pistol was later recovered, the report said.

At the time of Wednesday’s shooting, Mr. Myers had posted a $10,000 bond and was subject to house arrest and wearing a GPS monitoring system to track him, according to a spokeswoman for the attorney’s office. After the shooting, crowds gathered to protest in the neighborhood, vandalizing police cars and smashing cruiser windows, according to Col. Dotson. Protesters took to social media to invite people from nearby Ferguson, Mo., the site of August’s shooting, to join in, many chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!” which has been the rallying cry of Ferguson protests.
 This may or may not be the same thing....If there is an injustice...I am all for due process...If this is just a case of a thug getting his...Then it's a whole different matter...I don't know all of the facts at this writing and I'm not going to take the knee jerk reaction that the police are in the wrong...IN THIS CASE...and with the facts I have so far!

But this kind of thing has happened so much that you can't blame people for being a little suspicious and angry regardless of the circumstances..

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Friday, October 10, 2014

Why Did He Die?

Why Did He Die?

This is Thomas Eric Duncan...the young man from Liberia who was diagnosed with the Ebola virus in Dallas a few weeks ago...Why did he die when every other person diagnosed with it in America has survived so far?

The family of Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan are venting their outrage that the late Liberian may not have received the same quality of care leading up to his death Wednesday morning as the other patients treated in the U.S. for the dreaded virus.

''No one has died of Ebola in the U.S. before. This is the first time,'' Duncan's furious nephew Joe Weeks told ABC.

Joe Weeks and others in Duncan's family are calling his treatment ''unfair,'' after seeing other patients pulled from the brink of death in government-funded evacuation planes and using life-saving blood transfusions and cutting edge drugs.

 Five US citizens have been diagnosed with Ebola and three of them have beaten it. NBC News cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, the latest American victim, arrived at the infectious disease ward at the University of Nebraska Medical Center this week for treatment. A fourth victim, a World Health Organization doctor, is being treated in Atlanta.

All five have been flown to specially-designed infectious disease wards in Nebraska or Atlanta for treatment by some of the world's top doctors. The anger from Duncan's family also stems from what happened before Duncan was seen by doctors but after he fell ill - when the Liberian was initially turned sent home by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital - the same hospital that later admitted him.

''What if they had taken him right away? And what if they had been able to get treatment to him earlier,' said Dallas pastor George Mason, a confidante of the family's, according to a CNN report. While Mason told reporters that Duncan's fiance Louise Troh 'is not seeking to create any kinds of divisions in our community,' she has called for a full review of his medical care.

A memorial service was held at Wilshire Baptist Church on Wednesday evening for Mr Duncan after he passed away at 7.51am. Senior Pastor George Mason led prayers for the congregation that included community leaders and a small number of friends and family of Mr Duncan.

The pastor told the large congregation who had gathered to mourn his passing, that Mr Duncan’s dying wish was to see his son. That desire were the last words spoken by the first Ebola victim to die on American soil - and it was a desperate hope he did not live to fulfill.

 His remains were sent for cremation on Thursday, Fox reported. Health authorities said it had been removed from Texas Presbyterian but gave no details on the location of the crematorium.

The ashes will then be returned to Mr Duncan's family. None other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson appeared in public with Duncan's mother, raising the specter of legal action against the hospital as he condemned Duncan's treatment. ''He got sick and went to the hospital and was turned away, and that's the turning point here,'' the Rev Jackson, a spokesman for the family, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

The family seem to be suggesting that further turning points would follow once Duncan finally received treatment.

When Duncan first went to Texas Presbyterian on September 25, he was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and was never tested for Ebola, despite telling nurses that he had come from Ebola-stricken Liberia. Unlike Ebola victims Dr Rick Sacra and NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, Duncan did not receive a transfusion of blood from American Ebola survivor Dr Kent Brantly after he was finally diagnosed. Weeks says doctors told the family ''that the blood wasn’t a match.'' 

I know...I know... Some of you will say "How dare you play the race card."  But the facts speak for themselves...Those white physicians who arrived in Atlanta with the Ebola Virus are well now....This poor man was initially turned away from the hospital and told to take a few aspirin...When he goes to get treatment, his condition gets worse and he dies...and what color is his skin??

These are facts and if I am asking these questions...So should some of you...The question remains...

Why Did He Die?  Why did he have to die?

Monday, October 6, 2014

A Simple Thank You Would Suffice

Did you know that unemployment dropped below 6 percent for the first time since 2008?

It did?  Not propoganda....Fact!

This last snapshot of the job market before midterm elections marks the first time the unemployment rate has dropped below 6 percent since 2008. But the total share of Americans who have jobs has recovered only modestly unfortunately...

The economy created a robust 248,000 jobs in September and the official unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent from 6.1 percent the month before, the Labor Department reported.

That’s welcome news for US workers, and in political terms, such signs of economic improvement tend to buoy the party that is control of the White House...The question is...Will it?

I was watching Bill Mahr recently and he said that people who tend to vote in these mid-term elections tend to be the angry and afraid voters....Voters who usually veer toward the right...

People who now have medical insurance...People who have been recently hired....et al....You should be the ones rushing to the polls to vote...If for nothing more than to say -"Thank You"....."Thank You President Obama..." But for some people....even the ones who have benefited...To say thank you might be a little too much.

And Why doesn't Fox News report this?   Because it's something positive...because they can't spin that in a way that is negative towards the President or the Democrats..
It's very simple..

But I digress...So despite a string of solid job reports in recent months, the state of the economy is, at best, providing modest support to Democrats in key races. Far from assuring that Democrats can retain their narrow control of the Senate, the improving job market is simply helping them to stay in the election game..That's a damn shame!

This fall...Really, Next Month- Republicans need a net gain of six Senate seats to take charge.

President Obama, seeking to help his party, is doing his best to capitalize on the job market’s improvement-
When I took office, businesses were laying off 800,000 Americans a month. Today, our businesses are hiring 200,000 Americans a month,” President Obama said Thursday, in a speech at Northwestern University near Chicago.

A political challenge, however, is that the economy still isn’t nearly as strong as Americans would like – and the president’s popularity is also suffering from other factors – like handling of foreign policy – that have nothing to do with the economy.

Although unemployment has fallen sharply from its post-recession high of about 10 percent, the total share of Americans who have jobs has recovered only modestly – to 59 percent of adults, down from about 63 percent just before the recession.
Part of that reflects the demographics of the baby boom, as more Americans are hitting retirement age. But it also reflects an economy where many potential workers aren’t optimistic enough to even look for work. Those on the sidelines aren’t counted in the official unemployment rate.

Wage growth has also been disappointing, barely keeping pace with inflation.
The president acknowledged the challenge in his speech. He said it’s “indisputable that millions of Americans don’t yet feel enough of the benefits of a growing economy where it matters most – and that's in their own lives.”

And the positive tone of the September jobs report (many economists didn’t expect the unemployment rate to drop below 6 percent), doesn’t mean the economy is about to shift into high gear.

Members of the National Association for Business Economics, in a new survey, expect the annualized pace of economic growth to come in at 3 percent for the remainder of 2014 and 2.9 percent for 2015, after notching 3.1 percent last year.

All that hints at why it’s hard for Democrats to run as the party of economic recovery..Why it's hard for people to say "Thank you" with their votes...in all fairness.

That doesn’t mean gains in the job market are meaningless for the election, though. Democratic incumbents like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire and Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina would probably be having a tougher time if it weren’t for lower-than-average unemployment (4.4 percent in New Hampshire as of August) or significant improvement (unemployment has fallen in North Carolina from 8.8 percent at the start of 2013 to 6.8 percent in August).

In both those states, the Democrats have an edge in recent polls.

The same dynamics also may be supporting Democrats who are behind in the polls – helping to keep their hopes alive in places like Arkansas, even though the political terrain favors Republicans.

But, as important as the economy is – it’s ranked by Americans at the top of their priority list – other themes, from national security to social issues, are also taking a high profile in tight races.

Republican Joni Ernst has taken the lead against Democrat Bruce Braley for Iowa’s open Senate seat, for example, even though unemployment there is just 4.5 percent and the seat has been held until now by Democrat Tom Harkin.

Something is definitely wrong with this picture!

Friday, October 3, 2014

Weekend Humor

A mom is driving her little girl to a friend's house for a play date. "Mommy ," the little girl asks ,"How old are you?"

"Honey , you are not supposed to ask a lady her age", the mother warns .
"It is not polite".


"Ok", the little girl says ."How much do you weigh?"


"Now really," the mother says , "These are personal questions and really none of your business."


Undaunted , the little girl asks," Why did you and daddy get a divorce?"


"That is enough questions , honestly!Find something to do...Here, find a game on my smartphone." The exasperated mother walks away as the two friends begin play.


"My Mom wouldn't tell me anything ."
The little girl says to her friend.


"Well," said the friend ,"All you need to do is look at her driver's license,
it is like a report card it has everything on it"said her friend.


  So later that night ,the little girl says to her mother ," I know how old you are . You are 32"


The mother is surprised and asks ,"How did you find that out?"

"I also know that you weigh 140pounds ." The mother is past surprise and shocked now.
 

"How in heaven 's name did you find that out? OH MY LORD!!"she exclaims.

 

"And ,"the little girl says triumphantly ,"I know why you and daddy got a divorce".
 

"Oh really?"The mother asks ." And why's that?"
 

"Because you got an F in sex".

*Mother fainted*


Have a groovy weekend everybody!

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Mixed Bags...

In this diverse and divisive nation of ours...I sometimes wonder if the news can get any more bizzarre or stupid than the story I am about to convey to you....It involves Lesbians, A mixed race baby and intolerance or perceived intolerance...

Apparently a Chicago-area sperm bank is being sued by an Ohio woman for mistakenly giving her vials from an African-American donor, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Jennifer Cramblett, who is white, has filed a lawsuit stating that Midwest Sperm Bank gave her the vials of a black man instead of the white man that she and her life partner had chosen. Documents show that Jennifer Cramblett and her life partner, Amanda Zinkon, chose donor No. 380, who is white. However, they were sent the sperm from donor No. 330, who is black.

When the couple ordered more vials so that they could have more children using sperm from the original white donor they claim they requested, it was then that they realized the initial donor didn’t match the one they requested. But by then, it was too late....Jennifer Cramblett was already pregnant.


Jennifer Cramblett is suing the sperm bank for get this...“Wrongful birth and breach of warranty, citing the emotional and economic losses she has suffered,” the Tribune reports.

The lawsuit states, “On August 21, 2012, Jennifer gave birth to Payton, a beautiful, obviously mixed-race baby girl. Jennifer bonded with Payton easily and she and Amanda love her very much. Even so, Jennifer lives each day with fears, anxieties and uncertainty about her future and Payton’s future.”

Jennifer Cramblett and her life partner have stated that there are challenges to raising Payton in the small, virtually all-white town of Uniontown, Ohio. Jennifer Cramblett stated in the lawsuit that she was raised in a community that held racially intolerant beliefs about people of color. (and of course...I'm going to assume that she and her life partner don't.)

Jennifer Cramblett stated that she did not meet any African Americans until she attended college. The lawsuit states that it is because of her upbringing that “Jennifer acknowledges her limited cultural competency relative to African-Americans and steep learning curve, particularly in small, homogenous Uniontown, which she regards as too racially intolerant.” (Hmmm, I wonder how tolerant they are of her same sex relationship....Not judging...Just asking...Towns like that are usually intolerant of both!)

One of the couple’s concerns involves getting Payton’s hair done. It requires Jennifer Cramblett to travel to a black community where she is “not overtly welcome.”

Further, Jennifer Cramblett is concerned about her family, which the lawsuit states is an “all white and unconsciously insensitive family.”(I imagine they were just tickled pink about their daughter's living arrangement)

The lawsuit goes on to say, “Though compelled to repress her individuality amongst family members, Payton’s differences are irrepressible, and Jennifer does not want Payton to feel stigmatized or unrecognized due simply to the circumstances of her birth. Jennifer’s stress and anxiety intensify when she envisions Payton entering an all-white school.”

Jennifer Cramblett’s therapist has suggested that she and her partner move to a more racially diverse area for the now 2-year-old child’s psychological health.

That's a good idea....

This is why I am a huge advocate for higher education in this country.....We have too many stupid people living and working everyday in this country....I am not talking about Jennifer Cramblett and her partner...I'm talking about the people in her family and community that are so afraid and so intolerant of her lifestyle choice and the race of her baby.


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

What I've Learned


1.When All is said and done...you find that all was never said or done!

2.If You find you can't get out of something...Then get into something.

3.Life is a game of balances

4.Never be afraid to start over.....

5.Re-invention is the spice of life

6.When I was a child, I was very impulsive....but my Grandmother always said -''He''ll be alright" and sometimes that's all you need...is one person to believe in you!

7.Love may not really conquer all...But it conquers a lot!

8.Beards add ten years to your face...which is cool when you're 17 and trying to buy beer...but not so cool when you're 56 and it's starting to gray...

9.Life isn't fair or unfair...It just is...

10.If you're the smartest person in your group of friends....Then you need to make some new friends

PEACE!



KEEPING THE FAITH: RANDOM PRAYERS "ON THE DOWNLOAD"










































































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