Update from the
Heartland
No.752
9.5.16 – 15.5.16
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
Jeanne
and I are proud to announce and acknowledge the wedding of our oldest child and
only daughter Jacy Lynn to her partner of almost 13 years Tracy Lynn Elpers. They committed to each other 10 years
ago in Hawaii, where civil union (but not marriage) was legal. Rather than petition Hawaii to upgrade
their civil union after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges [576
U.S. ___ (2015)] ruling [706, 710],
they decided to marry before their families and friends in Kansas.
The Wedding Party
[File: Jacy wedding B
160514.jpg]
I must give a shout out to our friends Karen & Mike
Young, who provided the venue for the ceremony, and to Mike, who officiated
expertly at the wedding. Thank
you, Mike and Karen. Jacy &
Tracy have always been so great together.
We have never seen our daughter happier. We are happy, thankful and grateful they can finally enjoy
the benefits of marriage.
The Brides – Jacy
& Tracy
[File: Jacy &
Tracy wedding 160514_2.jpg]
Congratulations Jacy & Tracy. Take good care of each other. May God bless you both and enrich your lives together. We are proud of you both.
The follow-up news items:
-- The U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence navigated to within
12 nautical miles of a land feature in the South China Sea known as Fiery Cross
Reef [624, 696, 702/3]. The PRC scrambled fighters to challenge
the passage of the Lawrence. I hope and expect the captain of the Lawrence had the ship at general
quarters with at least two birds (missiles) spun up and the guns manned and
tracking. No shots were fired by
either side, thankfully, but we continue to inch closer to that day. In addition to the South China Sea
hegemonic expansion, the PRC is also attempting expansion in the East China Sea
at the Senkaku Islands [567, 574, 580, 582, 624, 673].
-- Special Agent in Charge Robert Elder, Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, of the Houston Division, publicly announced
that the agency had determined the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company, West,
Texas [592, 17.4.2013] was caused by
a fire intentionally set by someone or group of someones. The explosion registered 2.2 on the
Richter scale and was estimated to be a 25-35T ammonium nitrate explosion that killed
15 people and injured more than 250, and it was a criminal act. The agencies of the USG are searching
for those responsible for setting the fire that caused the blast. Special Agent Elder offered no
indication whether the event had a terrorism connection.
-- The Wall Street
Journal reported that interviews as part of the continuing investigation
and a Belgian parliamentary inquiry into the Brussels terrorist attack on March
22nd [745] could have
been much worse if not for ample luck, solid police work, and disarray inside
the terror cell caused by the lack of an on-the-ground leader. As we say in the aviation business,
better lucky than good.
What
is it about this damn restroom issue?
The state of North Carolina and the United States Government (USG) filed
counter suits in federal court over, which restroom transgender people are
allowed to use. In the USG’s
petition, they claimed the North Carolina law restricting restroom usage to the
gender on a person’s birth certificate is illegal under the protections of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 [PL 88-352; 78 Stat. 241]. Like so many other similar morality laws, state governments
seek to discriminate against an entire class of citizens based on the distant,
mythical threat conjured up in their distorted imaginations. Instead of enforcing existing laws
against injurious, criminal conduct, they seek to disenfranchise that segment
of our population. In that sense,
the Republican front-runner was correct, leave the laws status quo ante, i.e., existing laws are sufficient to prosecute
criminal conduct.
I offer a snapshot of the situation in Kansas.
“Brownback remains least popular governor in the nation”
by Bryan Lowry
Wichita
Eagle
Published: MAY 12, 2016; 3:31 PM
This little news flash is not a revelation to those of us
living in Kansas. Brownback
narrowly survived re-election. I
doubt he will survive the next election, if he is not impeached and removed
from office in the interim. I
think the poll data is precisely correct.
And yet, how did he get elected, you ask? Well, the believers who swallowed the Kool-Aid vote; other
citizens do not. That is how he
got elected. Then, as if we really
care what he has to say, we hear this:
“GOP voters’ anger with Obama helped lift Trump”
by Bryan Lowry
Wichita
Eagle
Published: MAY 11, 2016; 1:22 PM
Brownback claimed the success of the Republican front-runner
in the primary season is directly attributable to President Obama. The really sad reality in all this,
Republicans appear even more pathetic when they blame everything, including
their own primary results, on President Obama – the bogeyman did it. Really? What are We, the People, supposed to think of this juvenile
nonsense? The anger that the
Republican front-runner managed to tap into is much larger than President Obama
and the desperation that has led so many to grasp at the closest life-ring they
can see.
In
another local newspaper phenomenon, the Wichita
Eagle Sunday edition published a full-page advertisement titled: “What does
the Bible really say about abortion?” [p.5B, 15.5.2016]. The subtitle: “There is no Biblical
justification for the assault on women’s reproductive rights.” A group called the Freedom From
Religion Foundation (FFRF) purchased the advertisement. The ad quotes a dozen Old Testament
verses as rationale. The ad’s last
line, “It’s vital for women’s freedom to ensure that our civil rights are not
subject to someone else’s religion.”
I thought it was an interesting argument, which is why I decided to
illuminate the advertisement. I
happen to agree with the concluding line.
Abortion is a morality question unique to each woman. As I have long argued, morality is the
business of religion and a private matter to each individual. The exception with abortion and as the
anti- crowd argues, who speaks for the single cell, zygote – the sperm
fertilized ovum? If the anti-
crowd cared even a fraction as much about living, breathing children as much as
they want us to believe they care about the zygote, I might actually give more
credence to their argument. They
do not; thus, I do not. The
‘quickening’ threshold utilized by the Judiciary remains the most rationale
criterion. Until the Doctrine of
Coverture was finally expunged from our body of laws [1981], a wife was
considered the property of her husband or father. While there are a significant segment of our population who
advocate for our return to the good old days, I am proud that we have matured
beyond the antiquated thinking of the past. Making abortion a crime – a morality crime at that – is
simply a bludgeon to deal with a specific issue; and, like all the other
morality laws, e.g., gambling, substance consumption, prostitution, et al,
using the common law in matters of morality not involving injury to person or
property is just not the correct way to deal with morality questions. I was intrigued by their approach, but
I will not be contributing to FFRF . . . interesting argument, though.
Comments and contributions from Update no.751:
Comment to the Blog:
“I’m glad you enjoyed Arizona. I’ve never been anywhere more
beautiful.
“I had an experience near the New Mexico-Arizona border that
somewhat parallels yours. I succeeded in driving (on Interstate 10) through a
dust storm only to see it change to a rain of mud. I found my windshield
suddenly an interesting shade of yellow brown, completely opaque. Fortunately
for me, I was able to stop, and the ordinary kind of rain followed closely. The
shower cleared the windshield, leaving me with only a unique memory. It’s good
that you were able to come through your experience unscathed.
“I have driven on that stretch of US 60 through Mesa. I hope and
expect never to do that again. The two or three times I did it, traffic filled
every lane, bumper-to-bumper, shoulder-to-shoulder, merciless and fast.
“While the Republican ‘presumptive nominee’ continues his course,
I suspect he will be the end, rather than the beginning, of the Tea Party.
Seeing the Donald through a traditional political lens reveals very little.
While I still doubt his aims, either at the beginning or now, I think I’ve
divined his method. Trump, as you may know, has not succeeded in business to
nearly the degree he claims. However, he has a talent for marketing that should
be obvious. (For example, when I heard that ‘Donald Trump is running for
President,’ I knew instantly who that meant, and I expose myself to popular
culture quite a bit less than most people. That’s marketing.) Whatever goal he
seeks, we’re seeing a very successful marketing campaign. Having eliminated the
competition for the nomination, he has begun the next phase. His marketing is
turning to the general electorate as he tries to take over some of Bernie
Sanders’ ideas. My evidence for this is hearing him say on CBS Morning News
this morning (5-9-2016) that the wealthy will inevitably pay higher taxes. That
will bring nausea to the Tea Party, but he got what he needed from them and
he’s done with them. Keep in mind that none of this has anything to do with his
actual plans.
“As with any other marketer, Trump is not interested in the
surface appearance of his actions but in their deeper psychological results.
Think of all the annoying or silly advertising you have seen. Those ads
continue because they sell products, not because people like seeing the
commercials. The Donald is not nearly as dumb as he seems.
“Your discussion of a ‘thousand year plan’ or some such by people
in the Islamic world to take over Europe appalls me. That notion is unworthy of
you. The best-laid plans of conspirators ancient and modern have fallen apart
due to the same field of knowledge that sells Donald Trump: psychology. If a
plan with the caliber of conspirators involved in the Watergate mess cannot
keep its secrets for Nixon’s entire term, what makes you think a disunited
collection of religious fanatics can seek such a goal for centuries? To address
your commenter’s description of that cartoon, there’s a simpler reason
displaced Syrians go to Europe rather than other Arab nations. The entire
Middle East is under siege by the U.S. and our agents, especially from a Syrian
viewpoint. Beyond that, most of the Middle Eastern countries treat outsiders
like dogs, and the differences between the various shades and grades of Sunni
and Shiite Muslim have caused strife right from the beginning of Islam. The
Crusades would be a better example of attempted religious conquest, and we know
what happened to that idea.
“President Obama seems to have found a backbone for the last two
years of his term, at least to some degree. If I thought Hillary Clinton would
perform that well, I would probably vote for her.”
My response to the
Blog:
Arizona
is a magnificent state. All states
have beautiful spots, even Ohio, West Virginia and New Jersey.
I’ve
had a similar mud rain event, but not as bad as yours. Our bug event was even more strange in
that it was instant, not a progressive sequence – instant opaque. Anyway, we all survived.
Our
US60 experience was not as bad as yours.
I was just amazed at the expanse, and that even with heavy traffic it
was still moving fast, which is much better than the stop & go crawl of LA
and other major cities.
Re:
GOP front-runner. Interesting
perspective, I must say. My Tea
Party remark was rather loose and a disservice to serious Tea Party
citizens. I am still struggling
with how desperate some of our citizens must be to latch onto any old piece of
flotsam or jetsam floating about on the water. He is a façade without depth, and yes, apparently a master
marketer. Marketers are an
essential part of the commercial process, and perhaps a marketer is precisely
what we need at this point in time.
I am just not convinced this particular marketer, with all his myriad
character flaws, is an acceptable candidate, set aside best, to be
commander-in-chief of this Grand Republic.
Re:
the plan. I do not recall using
the word ‘plan,’ in that the word implies some organized, concerted effort
toward an established objective.
Yet, facts are facts.
Eventually, facts accumulate into an image. What does the picture suggest? To me, more than an odd few, radical clerics spread over
more than a millennium have instigated their believers to dominate, subjugate
and oppress everyone they could (believers and non-believers) by force of arms,
by intimidation, by fear, by terrorism.
No, I do not believe there is some national plan other than parochialism
to an extreme that is incapable of tolerance. It took Christianity 1500 years to begin the process of
finding tolerance, and I will argue Christians are still trying to embrace
tolerance. None of this alters
what we experience today.
Re:
“The
entire Middle East is under siege by the U.S. and our agents.” My oh my, this appears to be a chicken
or an egg philosophical argument, i.e., is the U.S. in the Middle East to
dominate the region militarily, or even economically, or is the U.S., there
because more than a few inhabitants of the region kill and threaten to kill
American citizens? The Crusades
are often used as a bad example, yet they are another chicken & egg
argument. You accurately reference
the strife between Islamic factions, which has been a fact of life at least
since the assassination of Imam Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib [661 AD]; that strife is not
likely to abate anytime soon. Yet,
I doubt the U.S. would be engaged in the region if ‘that strife’ was confined
to the region and those believers, like a civil war. But, that violence has NOT been confined to the region for 60
years (or more, depending upon how we wish to define thresholds).
Re:
Obama. Also, an interesting
perspective. I have been
disappointed by his lack of apparent engagement with Congress to do the
nation’s business. President
Franklin Roosevelt was perhaps the best at engaging Congress, and more
importantly, We, the People, to move the nation. To be candid, I had high expectations for Obama’s rhetorical
skills to move the nation like Churchill and Roosevelt. He has not attained that threshold of
my expectations. Oh well, life is
like that.
We
still have quite a way to go before the election. A lot can happen in that amount of time.
. . . Round two:
“By this time, the phrase ‘serious Tea Party citizens’ is an
oxymoron. People who won't listen to science, history, or reason ought not to
be taken seriously.
“Certainly marketing is an appropriate skill for a politician, but
it needs to be accompanied by many other skills and ethical values as well. I
see Trump as a marketer with no ability to govern, conduct diplomacy, or
negotiate sanely with Congress. His ethics better fit a marketer than a
responsible leader.
“I currently live 106 miles from the Cleveland Convention Center,
site of the Republican convention. I find myself torn between wanting to be
closer to the action to watch the splendid circus the GOP will put on and a
more practical need to be further from the stench and potential violence.
“That tendency to dominate everyone else is built into all the
Abrahamic religions. Certainly the Christians have done it more successfully
than anyone else, with all of Europe, the Americas, and Australia under their
belt as well as various other territories. I do not see the Christians trying
to embrace tolerance, at least not a majority of them. (I have an outside view
of Christianity that is colored by mostly negative personal experience.) I
think they have merely run out of places to conquer that are not ably defended.
“I was not discussing the Middle East from a philosophical view at
all. I don't waste time discussing philosophy publicly unless it relates to
functioning. I was merely trying to explain to a hostile audience how the
Syrians would view their region. From where they stand, nowhere nearby is safe
from drones, bombs, or armies. Those come from or are trained by the U.S.
government, in some instances on both sides of a conflict. They cannot put
energy into deciding who to blame.
“Your claim of Muslims committing violence outside the Middle East
for 60 years needs much more support before I'll consider it, as does your
claim of any attempt by them to ‘dominate, subjugate, and oppress everyone else’
more than other religious groups. In a related matter, I'm seriously tired of
people basing further violence on 9-11. Those 3,000 people literally have been
avenged a hundred fold and the perpetrators are long dead. In the course of our
vengeance, we have created many enemies for ourselves. Claiming fear of a military
attack is a red herring. We need out of this mess.
“Your faith in oratory as a way to move Congress is touching but
misplaced. Oratory moves the public sometimes, but politics works more behind
the scenes or in historical ‘writing on the wall’ terms. Beyond that, too many
currently in Congress never listen with respect to a black man, any more than
they pay attention to the women in their midst. The Congress does not give
President Obama the choice of working with them.
“A lot can indeed happen before the election, even before the
conventions. I saw a passing item on the Internet somewhere today about missing
emails from the person responsible for setting up Senator Clinton's private
email server. Sanders won yet another primary today, as did Trump. I'm sure
there will be more items by the late news tonight. As David Niven used to say,
the possibilities are endless.”
. . . my response to round two:
Re:
serious Tea Party citizens. I
shall beg to differ, my friend. I
believe there are indeed some very serious, Tea Party citizens. Not all Tea Party believers /
identifiers are the same.
Re:
GOP front-runner. Good
observations; I happen to agree . . . a very shallow man, it seems to me. Unfortunately, I have no urge
whatsoever to be in Cleveland in July . . . niente.
Re:
religious tolerance. I agree with
your initial observation, but there is a world of difference between
Christianity today and 600 years ago; and, I do not agree Christians retain a
crusader drive to imposed their religious beliefs on others . . . well, now
wait a minute . . . then, there are the likes of Ted Cruz, Sam Brownback, et al,
who are attempting to do just that.
Perhaps, I am wrong here, I must admit, but I don’t think so.
Re:
Syria. Whoa, whoa whoa! We are missing a whole lot of history
from your contention. There are a
bunch of steps missing from your statement of U.S. engagement in Syria. That said, President Bush and his
administration (specifically SecDef Rummie) have culpability, since their
failure to secure Iraq after deposing Hussein led to ISIL.
Re:
Muslims committing violence. Well,
please allow me to cite just a few examples:
23.7.1968 El
Al Flight 426 (B-707) hijacked by 3 members of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
21.12.1975 just
before 12:00 [A] EST, a six-member terror squad stormed the conference
of the oil-exporting countries (OPEC) in Vienna. During a gunfight, an Austrian
detective, an Iraqi security officer and the Libyan delegate Jusuf al-Azmarly were
killed. Terrorist team included: Ilich
Ramirez Sanchez AKA “Carlos the Jackal,” Hans-Joachim Klein, and Gabriele
Kröcher-Tiedemann. The terrorists took about 70 hostages.
23.9.1983 Gulf Air Flight
771 destroyed in flight over UAE by a onboard bomb planted by the
Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), killing 112 [245+]
12.4.1985 car exploded at Madrid restaurant frequented by U.S. servicemen near U.S. airbase, killing 18 Spaniards and wounding 82 people, including 14 Americans.
26.2.1993 World Trade
Center bombing in NYC; a bomb exploded in the garage of New York's
World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
28.11.2002 Suicide car bomb
in Kenya
blew up a resort hotel [15 killed] + 2 ManPAD SAMs fired at Israeli airliner, Arkia flight
582, [but missed, one may have hit but not detonated]; al-Qa’ida
again
2.3.2011 --
15:20
[A] CET, jihadist
assassin attacked USAF bus at Frankfurt airport, Germany, killing 2 airmen, injuring two others; a Kosovo national Arif Uka, 21, captured & taken into custody by German police [U-481]
I can offer a myriad of other event examples, but this list should
suffice. The War on Islamic
Fascism goes back a long way prior to 9-11. We could unilaterally withdraw from the entire world and
that would not stop the violence, not make us safer; it was would only invite
more serious attacks in this country.
In my examples above, I specifically excluded attacks on Americans or Europeans
inside Muslim dominated countries, as they can be interpreted as “defending the
homeland.”
Re:
faith in oratory. Misplaced,
perhaps, but I don’t think so. As
a student of history, there are too many examples in history. The polarities and calcification of
politics in the last few decades has nothing to do with President Obama. The exact same thing occurred in
reverse when President Bush (43) was in office. The political problems within this Grand Republic are far
deeper than President Obama, Hillary Clinton or the GOP front-runner.
Re:
happening. We are not past the
strangeness and oddities. Hang on
for the bell.
. . . Round three:
“I am tired, and for now I will only dispute your claim about
Christians. That issue looks very different from the outside. Whether or not
they meant well, dozens of Christians have disputed my right to be
non-Christian and/or my statement that I have long been content either with no
religion or with a very different religion. Plenty of those were not the
poisonous likes of Ted Cruz, but mainstream people who nonetheless insisted
that some version of Christianity was necessary to happiness, functioning, or
whatever they thought would be persuasive. I have no interest in whether they
sincerely feel that way, but only in their insistence that I change my beliefs.”
. . . my response to round three:
I
shall not contest your observation.
There are more than a few Christians, who vehemently proclaim their
evangelical Christianity, and yet ignore the teachings of Jesus of
Nazareth. Yes, you are quite
right, far too many so-called Christians feel compelled by their beliefs
(perhaps a better word is obsessed) to impose their beliefs on everyone around
them. They are not content to live
their lives per their beliefs; they insist everyone else must live by their
rules as well. Apparently, their
beliefs are so fragile and delicate that dissent or opposition cannot be
tolerated. Yet, those Christians
so threatened by differences are not all Christians. Like Anthony Comstock, a vocal, determined minority has been
able to impose their will on all citizens through intimidation, shame and
persistence; the same is true today.
My
very best wishes to all. Take care
of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
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