Santa Goes Digital

Written by Nicole Ferraro

12/24/2010 10 comments

In my day, my mom had to drive me two miles to the nearest shopping center, unbuckle my seatbelt, and walk me into a store, in order to bring me face to face with the one and only Santa Claus.

Thanks to the Internet, that's no longer the case.

Santa wannabes: Put away your fat suits and beards. All you need this year in order to thrust fantasy on gullible children is an Internet connection.

Several organizations and companies are doing their part to digitize Santa this holiday season.

NORAD, the military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the US and Canada, for example, has set Santa up with his own Facebook page and Twitter account. NORAD also hosts an online Santa-tracker, and on Christmas Eve people will be able to enter "Santa" into Google Maps on their mobile phones in order to determine his location. According to the site's detailed explanation of Santa tracking, "NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa - radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets." Feel safer now?

Santa himself has gotten pretty good at digital communications. A visit to PortableNorthPole.tvwill allow people to get Santa to send personalized greetings to their loved ones. And the siteTextSanta.net offers text messages from Old Saint Nick. For $3.99 a child (or childish adult) can receive a single text from Santa; and for $5.49 a child can receive three personalized SMS messages. ($1 from each text purchase is donated to the March of Dimes.)

Companies and organizations aren't the only ones getting into the digital Christmas spirit. Another Facebook page for Santa Claus has more than 9,000 "Likes" and was started by a man named Don Lanier who had intended to set up a Santa Facebook page to show his granddaughter.

"I showed it to her and she was all excited. That's what motivated me to keep it up," said Lanier in an interview with Internet Evolution.

Not expecting the large response he got to the Facebook page, Lanier had to enlist volunteer "elves" once the page grew past 3,000 fans. He's making it a point to respond to every Christmas wish wall post and email that comes in. While the "elves" handle some of the Facebook page activity, Lanier responds to each individual email, of which he's received nearly 700 and is amassing 50 to 150 per day.

Since Facebook only allows for users 13 and over to join the site, the activity on the page has been heavily influenced by parents who are speaking for their kids.

It hasn't all been Christmassy over on the Facebook page, though. Lanier has had to deal with spam and inappropriate posts; and he was even locked out of his own page by Facebook.

"One of the drawbacks is Facebook doesn't have very good administrative tools, so I can't approve messages before they're posted on the site. There have been really mean posts by children and adults alike. Then these people started flagging all of the comments and ended up blocking me out, and we couldn't update anything," he told us. "They knocked us off two or three times, it was frustrating."

But overall the experience has been positive and Lanier intends to keep the page going and possibly start a blog in conjunction with it. One of the draws, he says, has been all of the personal stories parents and children are sharing on the wall. Families have shared stories of financial and health hardships, and one post from a child currently on the wall asks for her family to be happy again.

"There are some sad stories in here. I wish I was a millionaire and could help some people out, but I can't," said Lanier. "I write back to them to motivate them and keep them going."

Editor's Note: Internet Evolution will be on a lighter posting schedule next week. We'll still have new content available every day, so please be sure to stop in. We'll resume normal posting on Monday, January 3rd. Happy Holidays!

— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution

Widening Our Perceptions of Reading and Writing Difficulties

Learning to read and write are complex processes, which can be disrupted in various ways, leading to disorders known as dyslexia and dysgraphia. Two new studies, published in a recent special issue of Elsevier'sCortex provide evidence of this variety, suggesting that effective treatment needs to take it into account.


A group of researchers from the Universities of Bari and Rome in Italy studied the reading and writing abilities of 33 Italian dyslexic children, comparing their performance with that of children with normal reading ability. Italian is an "orthographically transparent" language, meaning that letters tend to correspond to the same sounds, whereas many letters in the English alphabet change their sound from word to word (like the "c" in car and city). However, the new study showed that even in Italian, in which it is relatively straightforward to convert sounds into letters, children still have difficulties in spelling.

Younger children with dyslexia generally performed worse than proficient readers; however, the older ones showed a more selective impairment when spelling words, suggesting that knowledge of vocabulary may be more important in spelling than previously thought.

The other study, from Tel Aviv University, Israel, provided the first systematic description of a type of reading disorder called "attentional dyslexia" in which children identify letters correctly, but the letters jump between words on the page, e.g., "kind wing" is read as "wind king." Teachers and neuropsychologists often notice that children substitute letters when reading, but in this type of dyslexia the substitutions are not caused by inability to identify letters or convert them to sounds; they result from migrations of letters between words. The findings showed that letters would mostly migrate to the same position in another word, so the first letter of one word would switch places with the first letter of another word. Awareness to the existence of this type of dyslexia is important, because it suggests a straightforward way to assist these children in reading -- by presenting a ‎single word at a time, e.g., with the help of a word-sized window cut in a piece of cardboard.

Elsevier. "Widening our perceptions of reading and writing difficulties." ScienceDaily 8 December 2010. 8 December 2010 http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2010/12/101208125809.

NASA to Unveil Discovery That Affects Search for Extraterrestrial Life

NASA to Unveil Discovery That Affects Search for Extraterrestrial Life: "NASA is expected to make an announcement Thursday (Dec. 2) about a new scientific finding that 'will impact the search for extraterrestrial life,' the space agency said."

The Strangers That Came to Town

The first of April came dark and stormy, with silver whips of lightning cracking open the lowering clouds that seemed to skim the treetops. My brother Tom and I, recovering from chest colds, tired of reading and listening to the radio, turned to the big living-room window of our house on Syringa Street.

“Here they come, Mother,” cried Tom when a big truck drove up in the teeming rain and stopped in front of the empty cottage across the street. Mother hurried in from the kitchen and we three looked out. That truck, we knew, contained the Duvitch family and all their earthly possessions. Mr. Duvitch and the biggest boy carefully helped Mrs. Duvitch from the seat and walked her into the house, supporting her all the way. Another big boy, carrying a well-bundled baby, followed. A stream of young Duvitches, accompanied by a big brown houndlike dog, poured out of the back of the truck and stood in a huddle in the rain.

The barnyard sounds we heard escaped from two crates of hens the Duvitches had fetched along and from a burlap bag in which a small flock of ducks had been stowed. While the livestock made noises according to its kind, the Duvitches were quiet—almost solemn. They showed no elation at finding themselves in a new neighborhood and a very pretty neighborhood at that.

All afternoon Mother, Tom and myself had been watching out for them, with rather mixed emotions. For the Duvitches were immigrants and the first of their nationality to settle in our small smug town. Coming to our obscure part of the state a year before, they had moved into a rotting old farmhouse two miles north of town, long abandoned. After the slashing hurricane of mid-March, the moss-rotten dwelling looked like the house in the fairy tale that remained standing only because it did not know which way to fall and the Duvitches were forced to give it up.

“I wonder if Mrs. Duvitch is ill,” murmured Mother, looking through the rain at the dreary street scene.

“She must be,” said Tom. “I wonder if it’ll be all right for Andy and me to help ’em move in their stuff.”

This request, as Mother well knew, was not inspired by genuine feeling for the Duvitches but by curiosity and she shook her head. It was a strict family rule that any illness which kept us out of school would automatically keep us indoors.

But the Duvitches got along very well without help from us. As it turned out, they were old hands at moving. For years before coming to America they had been on the move, to escape starvation, separation, possible assassination. Every child capable of two-legged locomotion pitched in and helped carry the things from the truck. In no time at all, it seemed, the truck was empty and the Duvitches were shut up tight in their new home.

That was the signal for Mother to step into the kitchen. She returned swathed in her hooded raincoat, carrying a basket containing a vacuum jug of chicken soup, a baked tuna fish dish, steaming hot; a loaf of fresh bread and a chocolate cake. These she took to the house across the street and gave basket and all to the boy who answered her knock. It wasn’t her plan to stop for a visit that day but to wait a week or so and call when the Duvitches were all settled.

The next day when the three of us—Mother, Tom and myself—were having lunch, we heard a faint tap at the back door. I answered it and there stood a pale dark-eyed boy, looking very solemn, holding our basket. It contained the empty vacuum jug, casserole dish and cake plate, all of which shone, and a tiny very shapely potted rose tree, in exquisite pink-tipped bud, the handsomest plant—and the only plant of its kind—ever seen in that neighborhood.

“I send them a few scraps of food,” murmured Mother, a few seconds later, deeply touched, “and get this queenly gift!”

That was our last traffic with the Duvitch family for over two years. When Mother stopped to visit them a week after their coming, the little girl who opened the door a few inches said, “Mamma sick; she stay in bed today.”

Mrs. Duvitch never crossed the street to our house and Mother, a rather formal woman, made no further attempts to see the family. But Father disagreed when she remarked that she thought the Duvitches probably wished to be left alone.

Syringa Street seemed to be a friendly street. It was a crooked maple-shady country lane that wound through the town without losing its charm. The sidewalk here and there was almost lost in weeds and the ditches, in places, were brightened by clumps of orange day lilies. Widely spaced cottages, some of them smothered in vines, only seemed to make the neighborhood more rural. There were brilliant flower gardens, vegetable plots, fruit trees—and a few henhouses.

The children, who enjoyed all the benefits of country life while actually living in town, were quite numerous. Behind the facades of the street’s dwellings there was probably no more greed, envy, superstition or intolerance than lurked behind the doors of any average dwelling in any average American town. The cardinal virtues, no doubt, were all represented. Yes, Syringa Street seemed to be a friendly street.

But the Duvitches were marked people. They were the one struggling family in a prosperous community—and poverty, amid prosperity, is often embarrassing and irritating to the prosperous. They were considered unattractive physically. They were so meek! The Duvitches never fought back.

The women started in on Mrs. Duvitch because she “never showed her face.” It is true, she was rarely if ever seen in the daytime, emerging from her dwelling only after dark in warm weather, to sit on the veranda, where she found privacy behind the ragged trumpet creeper. But this gave rise to the rumor that she was the victim of an obscure skin disease and that every morning she shook scales out of the bed sheet. (When my father heard that one, he went out to the pantry and mixed himself a tall drink.)

Mr. Duvitch, too, was classified as an untouchable. His job, a rather malodorous one, was with the local rendering plant as a laborer. It followed that the Syringa Street young, meeting him on the street, sometimes stopped their noses as they passed him by—a form of torment all the more acute when Mr. Duvitch had to share it with the children that happened to be with him.
Black hard luck seemed to be their lot. A few weeks after they moved to Syringa Street they suffered a tragedy they were all summer in recovering from—Mr. Duvitch lost two weeks’ pay while gathering mushrooms in Tamarack Swamp. Inside of a year and a half, three Duvitch boys had lost, among them, by various mishaps, two fingers, one eye and an ear lobe. They were forever being cut up, bruised, mutilated by things falling, breaking, cracking and exploding.

A mild case of typhoid, mass cases of whooping cough and measles—all plagued the family within a year of their arrival. Their only bright spot here was Dr. Switzer, one of the town’s kindliest souls. He declined to accept fees, but was several times seen leaving the Duvitch cottage, carrying off a handsome house plant and looking very pleased. The Duvitches’ dog, Kasimar, acted just like the family to which he belonged—like one of the world’s poorest canine relations. He seemed to be afraid of his own shadow and no one had ever heard him bark or growl.

Because they cast their eyes on the sidewalk as one passed them by and spoke only when spoken to, the young Duvitches, like their parents, were considered antisocial. They were regarded as born scavengers too, for they spent hours foraging in the town dump, where they often picked up their footgear, some of their pants and shirts and furnishings for the house as well. They went on country excursions to gather watercress, dandelion greens, mushrooms and wild berries; and the few apples and tomatoes they occasionally concealed under their blouses didn’t make the farmers on whom they poached much poorer.

Tom and I raided tomato patches and robbed apple trees just for the fun of it. That first September four Duvitches—Irving, Benny, Abe and Esther—registered at the local grammar school. Mrs. Lovejoy, the principal, said they were bright, conscientious, pathetically eager but almost pathologically shy. Before she could put a stop to it, some of their classmates scoffed at the leaf, lard and black bread sandwiches they ate for lunch, huddled in one corner of the recreation room, dressed in their boiled-out ragpickers’ clothes. After school they headed straight for home, never lingering on the playground.
Even the tradesmen to whom the Duvitches gave good money were either curt with them or downright rude. Mrs. Frithjof Kinsella, the proprietor of the general store and a big jolly Viking who could be heard two blocks away, extended credit to almost everybody in town and had a way of insulting her customers so heartily that they all loved her for it. The Duvitches, however, Mrs. Kinsella very carefully did not insult (a form of insult in itself) and neither did she extend them credit.


But Mother, remembering the potted rose tree, always had a friendly word and a smile for the young Duvitches when she saw them and a bone for Kasimar when he found courage to venture across the road. Father was the only man on Syringa Street who tipped his hat to sixteen-year-old Maria Duvitch, when he met her coming home from her piece-work job in Miller’s Box Factory. It may have been that their European travail made it easy for them to endure such a trifle as humiliation in America.
“I think,” said Father one fine Saturday morning in July two years after the Duvitches had come to Syringa Street, “that it would be very pleasant for Andy, Tom and myself to pitch our tent out at Durston’s Pond and spend and swim. That is,” he added, “if Mother can spare us.”

“I can spare you very well,” Mother said cheerfully. She had a notion it did menfolk good to get away occasionally and in this instance the sacrifice came easily, because camp life was little to her liking.

She packed a hamper of food, Tom and I fetched a tent from the attic and Father looked over his fishing tackle. An hour after lunch we were driving through rolling farm country out to Durston’s Pond, four miles north of town.

We often had the serene little lake all to ourselves but on our arrival that afternoon we found half a dozen male Duvitches in possession. They had been fishing for several hours, casting from the shore, dropping their lines over the wooden bridge that spanned Cat Creek where it flowed into the pond and trolling for bass from a flat-bottomed rowboat.

Tom and I, Philistines like our friends, ignored the Duvitch boys but Father went up to Mr. Duvitch, who was fishing from the shore, and put out his hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Duvitch! It’s nice to see you and the boys here. What a beautiful day! Are Mrs. Duvitch and the girls all well?”


Mr. Duvitch was a little fellow, a lean starveling of a man with watery blue eyes and a kicked-about look. Gratitude for being agreeably noticed showed in his mosquito-bitten face as he took Father’s hand and his tremulous smile showed broken teeth.

“I know the mosquitoes are biting,” Father went on pleasantly, “but are the fish?”

Proudly, oh, so proudly, Mr. Duvitch exhibited the catch that would probably feed his family for the better part of a week: a fine mess of bass, perch and sunfish, all of them alive, as far as I could see, and swimming around in the oaken washtub in which they had been dropped. Father gave Mr. Duvitch hearty congratulations and said we couldn’t hope to do as well but that we’d try.

We three pitched the tent on a little knoll over the pond, and then Father, with a happy sigh, lay down on the blanket for a nap in the sun. Tom and I played a game of chew-the-peg on the grassy bank above the water and, later on, made several trips to the tent, for the camera, the field glasses, the sun lotion.

On a trip for a cold drink from the vacuum jug and to fetch towels and soap, we stopped to look again at the Duvitches’ catch of fish.
Mr. Duvitch and the boys had moved away and were fishing in a small arm of the pond below us. None of them seemed visible. Tom and I, our glances meeting over the big cake of soap in my hand, were similarly and wickedly inspired—the thing was irresistible. We held a brief whispering conversation; and then, egged on by him and quite willing on my own, I played a shameful trick on the Duvitches, the memory of which will come back to the end of my days to plague me. Without considering further, I dropped the cake of soap into the tub of fish.

“Let’s go,” whispered Tom after we had watched the soap sink to the bottom.

We swam out to the raft, diving and frolicking in the deep water. After a while the Duvitches, calling it a day, assembled at a spot on the shore below our tent, happy in the knowledge of a good catch to take home.

In a little while Tom and I could hear their muffled exclamations of disbelief and dismay. Father woke up and joined our neighbors in a conclave, looking down at the tub of fish near his feet. After a few moments he produced the whistle he carried on all our country excursions and blew it piercingly three times, the proclamation of emergency. This meant that Tom and I must come at once.

Looking as guilty as we felt, we swam in and joined the group gathering around the tub. In the midst of our stricken neighbors stood Father, holding the half-melted cake of soap in his palm silently but accusingly, for the fish had perished miserably in the soapy water and were unfit to eat. Not only had Tom and I snatched precious food from their mouths but we had brazenly advertised the contempt in which we held them.

Father’s eyes were narrow slits of blue fire in his white face. I had never seen him so angry. One look at Tom and me told him everything. Words would have been superfluous and my brother and I bowed our heads in acknowledgment of our guilt.

“You will begin,” Father said in a voice I didn’t recognize, “by saying you’re sorry.”

Our stunned neighbor wiped his blinking eyes as he listened to our mumbled words, which Father made us repeat when they were inaudible. But there was no hostility, no animosity toward us in the man and it was obvious also that he considered himself too humble to receive an apology, finding it, like most of life’s troubles, a mockery to be endured without protest. His sons showed no resentment, either, only a kind of resignation in their minds, which carried almost atavistic memories of century-old oppression by country barons and landed gentry.

One-eyed Manny Duvitch, as it turned out, had told Father he had seen me drop something in the tub of fish (before he learned that it had been a cake of soap). Now he looked guiltier than Tom and I. Because he had been the witness and accuser, it was as if he considered himself to be the troublemaker, deserving the punishment. The two real culprits were the young lords of the ruling manor, with unlimited license, exempt from chastisement. To Manny, the fortunate, the well-to-do, were also the privileged.

“Do you realize,” said Father coldly, looking from Tom to me, “that in certain primitive communities the sort of stunt you’ve pulled would be punishable by death?”

Tom and I did not reply.

“Turn over the tub,” said Father abruptly, addressing us as if we were strangers.

We turned it over. The gray soapy water ran away in bubbly rivulets, disappearing in the coarse mat of turf, and the poisoned fish lay exposed on the grass—quiet, strangled, open-mouthed—and somehow looking as if they were mutely protesting their horrid unnatural fate.

“Count the fish,” Father ordered us, his voice like steel.

Tom and I got down on our knees.

“How many are there?” demanded Father.

“Sixty-one,” I said.

“How many bass?”

“Twelve.”

Father handed Mr. Duvitch two dollars, the price of a day’s rental of the r owboat. Then, looking both the avenging angel and executioner, he ordered Tom and me, with our tackle and bait, off the land we had disgraced—into exile, out on Durston’s Pond.

“And you are not to come back,” he gave out in the same steely tones, “until you’ve caught sixty-one fish to repay Mr. Duvitch. See to it that among them you bring in at least a dozen bass.”

Father stepped up to the tent on the knoll to fetch our shirts and dungarees. These he rolled into a tight ball and shot like a bolt into the rowboat. He then turned his back to us and, thus disowned, Tom and I lost no time in rowing out on the pond. Father’s decisions, even with Mother present, were never reversed and swift execution, from which there was no appeal, followed his sentences.

Out in the middle of the big pond we dropped anchor, threaded our steel rods and, baiting our hooks, began to fish. I knew that if it took us all summer to catch them, we dared not set foot ashore without sixty-one fish. Almost at once Tom pulled in a good- sized bass and ten minutes later two yellow perch were added to our string. The crestfallen Duvitches went home. Father threw himself on the blanket, furiously smoking a cigar. That was about four in the afternoon.

Oh, the mosquitoes! They were bad enough at the time, and while the light held, but after we had been fishing for three hours and had caught eight fish, they swarmed out of the swampland surrounding the pond in legions. After an hour of it we wanted to leap overboard. They got in our ears, our noses, our eyes, even in our mouths, and nestling in our hair, they bit through to our scalps. I remembered tales of Indian prisoners in Alaska, turned loose on the tundra by their captors, where they died of the mosquitoes in two hours. Several times we slipped over the side of the boat, immersing ourselves in the water to escape the bloodthirsty clouds.

The night dragged on while the whining swarms grew thicker.

“Andy, what time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, Tom.”

“Is that all?” Tom groaned and pulled in another bass and killed six or eight mosquitoes in one slap. Two hours passed and midnight was ghostly on Durston’s Pond. The moon, bright as day, sailed high in the purple sky, dimming the starfire, casting a great white shaft of quivering radiance on the water, but it was all hideous. The big yellow disk sank in a gauzy cloudbank, then disappeared for good and the stars shone out with renewed splendor.

“Andy, what time is it?” 

CHOOSE FREEDOM!!!

There’s plenty of federal holidays for Americans to celebrate.  On July 4th, there’s independence from King George’s England.  On the first Monday in September, a holiday was dedicated to the “social and economic achievements of American workers.”  Other days throughout the year celebrate autumn harvest, soldiers who died in the civil war and even a person who sailed to this continent nearly three centuries before the country was “founded.”

When there’s no federally-sanctioned holiday to call upon, protesters and activists across the political spectrum often pick “important” dates to schedule events to bring attention to their cause.  We’ve seen protests on Tax Day, Independence Day, May Day, Earth Day, and more.  And, in the past few weeks we saw great importance placed on days that doesn’t even have a letter in their name, 8/28 and 9/12.

But nowhere to be found on these great lists of “federal holidays” or “protest days” is a celebration of the document that defined the principles of liberty that this country was supposedly founded upon – the Constitution.

LIMITING POWER

The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, and every year that date passes by with hardly a sound.  Sure, now that it’s considered a day of “federal observance” you’ll find government schools around the country including it in their lesson plans.  But these discussions generally focus on “Constitution Trivia” instead of what’s really important. While it may be good to educate our young on how many years a Senator serves, or how Supreme Court justices are appointed, it’s not enough.  Seriously lacking in the public discourse is the actual purpose of the Constitution – its underlying principles.

When the Constitution was being considered for ratification, there was strong opposition from famous American figures that included George Mason and Patrick Henry. One major reason for this was a fear of too much power.  The founding generation spent their lives toiling under a tyranny – a government without limits.  But, when the Constitution was written, it was done to codify in law that the powers of government would be limited to those which had been delegated to it – and nothing more.

The entire system was created under the principle of popular sovereignty – that ‘We the People of the Several States’ created the government, and all powers not delegated to it, were retained. But that’s not something you’re likely to hear from politicians in Washington DC, political pundits, schools, or just about anywhere else.  It’s generally not in their interest, either.

If politicians and their backers were promoting such crazy ideas as “originalism” and “limited government” they’d never be able to convince you that they have the power to tell you what kind of health care plan you’ll be getting, how big your toilet can be, what kind of plants you’re allowed to grow, where you’re allowed to exercise your “right” to free speech, whom you can buy and sell from, and even when you must send your children to die for them.

MORE OF THE SAME

Throughout history, even kings and queens have often failed to survive such acts of hubris; but, in “free” America, the major parties that produce all the presidents continue to receive approval through tens ofmillions of votes.  And where has that gotten people?

Well, let’s take a look at some major issues.

• If you were opposed to war in the Bush administration, you’ve still got the same wars and threats of wars under Obama.
• If you were opposed to national health care under Clinton, you got a massive expansion of government health care under George Bush, which laid the groundwork for an even bigger expansion under Obama.
• If you didn’t like the federal government passing the Patriot Act without even reading it, you’re still getting the same (or worse) failure to read legislation today.
• On the other hand, if you liked the Bush bailouts, you’ve gotta love the ones that Obama has given you!

No matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, the federal government is not your friend.  It’s not a friend to the Constitution, and it’s certainly no friend to your liberty.  For years and years…and years, people have yelled “vote the bums out!”  “Call Congress now!”  “March on DC!”  But, in the long run, little to none of this actually works.

If you oppose this national health care plan, they’ll give you that one.  If you oppose one war, you’ll get another one. If you oppose today’s bailout, they’ll find a different one tomorrow.  Decade in and decade out, the government keeps growing, and your liberty keeps shrinking.  And it doesn’t matter if the person in charge is named Obama, or Bush, or Reagan, or Clinton.

The bottom line?  Looking to the federal government – whether it’s though elections, or protests, or lawsuits, or rallies – is a failed strategy.   So how about trying something new?

A DIFFERENT PATH: NULLIFICATION

People around the country are recognizing that there is a different path, and one that has a chance of working on a big scale, too. Already nearly a dozen states have passed 10th amendment resolutionsreaffirming the proper role of government under the Constitution. 25 states have stopped the real id act dead in its tracks in most of the country. 8 states have passed firearms freedom acts – to nullify some federal gun laws and regulations in their state. 5 states have already passed laws to nullify federal health care mandates – with more on the way. And, fourteen states now have medical marijuana laws in direct opposition to federal laws.

In Jeffersonian-speak, this all falls under the banner of “nullification.”  When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

While some in government and the media would like to paint this essential tool for resisting federal tyranny as solely aligned with the South in the War Between the States – and nothing more, they’re missing some essential history.  It’s been used in efforts to advance free speech, help runaway slaves, resist high taxes and more.

And recently, the Bush-Era Real ID Act is now virtually dead in the water, not due to elections or rallies, or calls to Congress – but instead, due to state-level resistance. In the past three-plus years, approximately two dozen states simply refused to implement the law.  The result?  The law is still on the books in Congress. It’s never been overturned by a federal court. But yet – in most of the country – it’s virtually null and void.

Even better, this is no single-issue movement.  Legislators in over 20 states are considering legislation to nullify some federal gun laws, and another 20 are looking at ways to nullify national health care.  15 states are weighing legislation or ballot initiatives that could turn them into medical marijuana states by next year, and activists in over a dozen states have been pushing for legislation that would require their governors to bring national guard troops home from Iraq and elsewhere. On top of it, a national tour has been launchedin support of these efforts – something that may have been impossible just a few years ago

LIBERTY BEGINS WITH YOU

Issue by issue, law by law, the best way to change the federal government is by refusing to comply with it on a state and individual level. Withdrawing our consent for unconstitutional “laws,” acts, regulations….and mandates…has a much better effect than begging or demanding that DC limit its own power.

Over the years, wise men and women warned us that the Constitution would never enforce itself.  I believe it’s time for people to recognize this as fact, and bring that enforcement closer to home.

Whether you’re on the left, or on the right, or even somewhere in the middle, the path to freedom, the path to your political goals lies not in Washington D.C.  Instead, it lies in Madison, and Jefferson (City)…and other state capitols around the country.

So this Constitution Day take a new pledge. Ignore and nullify the federal government.  When it refuses to follow the Constitution year in and year out, it becomes as worthless as it is dangerous.

The Coming Food Crisis: Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse.

There was already little margin for error in a world where, for the first time in history, 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger. But the fragility of world food markets has been underscored by the tragic events of this summer.

The brutal wildfires and crippling drought in Russia are decimating wheat crops and prompting shortsighted export bans. The ongoing floods and widespread crop destruction in Pakistan are creating a massive humanitarian crisis that has left more than 1,600 dead and some 16 million homeless and hungry in a region vital to U.S. national security. These and other climate crises trigger widespread food-price volatility, disproportionately and relentlessly devastating the world’s poor.

Less noticed has been the spiking price of wheat — up 50 percent since early June. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recently cut its 2010 global wheat forecast by 4 percent amid fears of a scramble among national governments to secure supplies. As wheat prices climb, demand for other essential food crops such as rice will increase as part of a knock-on effect on world food markets, driving up costs for consumers. In particular, Egypt and other countries that depend heavily on Russian wheat might see dramatic price increases and unrest in the streets.

Fortunately, there are signs we will likely avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis, when prices jumped as much as 100 percent and led to deadly riots in Port-au-Prince and Mogadishu. This year, bumper crops in the United States, alongside replenished wheat stocks globally, may be adequate to offset shortages due to the fires in Russia. But these short-term measures should not lull us into complacency or a false sense of confidence. We still have neither a strategy nor a solution to ending global hunger.
In the short term, the United States must implement U.S. President Barack Obama’s promise to commit $3.5 billion to food security assistance….

Looking beyond the immediate crisis, the United States and other developed countries must renew long-neglected investments in agriculture assistance across the developing world, targeting small farmers as the fundamental drivers of economic growth. In Africa, for example, agriculture employs more than 60 percent of the labor force and accounts for 25 percent of the continent’s economic output. And yet, Africa continues to struggle: Nearly 10 million people in the northern Sahel region are suffering from extreme hunger, and most countries still lack adequate investment in agricultural and road infrastructure to facilitate the development of value-added products and new markets.

While the United States provides more than half of the world’s food aid, agriculture assistance today stands at only 3.5 percent of overall U.S. development aid, down from 18 percent in 1979. Not surprisingly, agricultural productivity growth in developing countries is now less than 1 percent annually.

We must also improve how this assistance is targeted. We can reap lasting results by focusing on soil and water conservation and improved crop varieties rather than carbon-intensive fertilizers. Scientific research and appropriate biotechnology can deliver significant crop yield gains and water savings if conducted in a safe and transparent manner. We also must invest in women, who represent up to 80 percent of the food producers in many developing countries, but frequently lack the support and services that will allow them to reinvest hard-earned agricultural gains into health and education for their families….

The Group of Twenty leading developed and developing nations must uphold their pledges of $22 billion to enhance global food security by sending real money out the door. The multilateral Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, a new global partnership funded by commitments from the United States, Canada, South Korea, Spain, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is to be commended for issuing $224 million in initial grants to help increase food security and reduce poverty in five developing countries.

But lasting gains in agricultural productivity will require something more — action to confront climate change. Food shortages resulting from severe crop losses will occur more frequently and take longer to recover from as more people become vulnerable to extreme weather events like the droughts and flooding we see today in Russia and Pakistan. The World Bank predicts that developing countries will require $75 billion to $100 billion a year for the next 40 years to adapt to the effects of climate change on agricultural productivity, infrastructure, and disease.


This year, we may be able to limit the damage to a single supply shock in Russia and Eastern Europe. But even in the best of times, our global food system is stretched to the breaking point by the ever-present challenges of population growth, increased demand from changing diets, higher energy costs, and more extreme weather. Experts at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimate global agricultural productivity must double by 2050 to keep pace with increased demand.


Unless we take immediate action, we are destined to race from food crisis to food crisis for generations to come, with grim consequences for the world’s poor and our own national security.

HAVE WE FORGOTTEN TO ASK, "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE AND WHY DO I EXIST"?

Why have we quit asking ourselves these questions?

Many people throughout the generations have tried to answer this eternal question, but it still stands before us in all its strength and bitterness, catching us off-guard, burning in our minds, and shaming us to dust. After all, this question cancels out our very "I," and man cannot consent to this since it touches upon the root of his soul.

If this did not concern our eternal essence, we could escape this question by turning off our minds with drugs or antidepressants. However, the question about the meaning of life does not pertain to the years of our corporeal existence.

The question, "For what was I created?" comes from my core and directs me to my initial root from which I can learn the reason for my existence. However, for the time being, we manage to be subdued, without thought, by falling into the well-known trap of giving into the flow of life.

We try to fool ourselves in every possible way, but it is becoming more and more difficult to exist according to the scheme: birth, school, university, job, children, old age, and death. We have no choice, in order to solve this question, I need to substitute the environment which helps me forget and hide the question concerning the meaning of life, with an environment that will help me expose it and answer it as quickly as possible.


Ask the questions and search for the answers. That is why we are here. To learn. You may be surprised and what answers you get to these questions and to questions you never thought about asking.


Just a thought.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO MY WIFE, GWEN

My Dearest Gwen,

When two souls, which have sought each other for, however long in the throng, have finally found each other ...a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are... begins on earth and continues forever in heaven.

This union is love, true love, ... a religion, which deifies the loved one, whose life comes from devotion and passion, and for which the greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.

This is the love which you inspire in me... Your soul is made to love with the purity and passion of angels; but perhaps it can only love another angel, in which case I must tremble with apprehension. LOL.

As cliche as this sounds you do indeed complete me more than any words can convey to you. 

Every day I want nothing more than for you to be happy. Every day I want nothing more than to do something for you to make your life easier.

Today it is sixteen years that we have been married. Today is the beginning of 16 more and then even 16 more after that.

We were meant to be, Gwen. I found you when I was not looking.  I found you when you did not want to be found. I found you because we were meant to be.

I love you,Gwen.  With all of my heart and soul. Thank you for putting up with me all of these years and loving me. Thank you for being there when I have needed you as I plan on always being there for you.

Happy Anniversary

Your loving Husband, Donnie

P.S. ~ Below is a video for you on this day.

Ohhh the Pain!!!

It has been a little over a week since I have written. I had surgery to repair two incision hernias and to remove a scar in my abdomen. Had a mesh cover put in place to support the repair. I can actually feel it by touching.  YUCK!!! I ended up getting a partial tummy tuck I guess you could say.

Recovery has been some what slow but good for the most part.  I am still in pain but that is getting better day by day and some pains get replaced with others.  Part of the healing.

I have ended up with an infection that I am having to treat now and praying that it clears up quickly.

I will get back to writing soon so check back every so often.  I will keep you posted on my progress.  God Bless.

Teaching Children Respect; If this don't work spank the crap out of them...

Respect is an amazing thing. I believe that respect is something that has to be earned, but I also believe that in order to be respected you have to show respect to others. If you take a look at our youth of today you can’t help but notice that they are the most disrespectful group of children this world has ever seen. Before you start pointing fingers or offering up excuses as to why children are this way I want you to stop and look in the mirror. What are you doing to teach your child/children respect?

I ask this because one of my favorite pastimes is people watching. I don’t mean that in some sick sort of way, I simply mean paying attention to the way people interact with one another and towards one another. This includes children and adults. I believe one problem is that parents do not respect their children and therefore children not only don’t respect their parents, they have no respect for anyone including themselves. Wait, before you get upset, I am not saying that you don’t love your children or that you are a bad parent. I simply saying that maybe parents aren’t paying attention to the way they interact with their kids and that is leading to a severe lack of respect. I am far from a perfect parent, and many times find myself guilty of this also. What is important in my opinion, is that we think more about how we interact with our children, and how our children interact with us and others.

Teaching respect is one of the most important jobs we have as parents. The best way to teach children respect is show respect, not just to other adults but to your children. Don’t confuse obedience with respect, fear also instills obedience. Know this; if a child is not respectful at home, they are not going to be respectful outside of the home. Let’s take a look at ways to help teach your child respect.

Listen to Them and They Will Listen to You

When your child is talking to you are you listening or are you busy doing five other things? I am not saying multi-tasking is bad, but listen to what your child is saying. Pay attention to what they are doing. Everything else can wait a minute or two. Make eye contact with them. Ask yourself, how many times you have had to say, “Look at me when I am talking to you,” and then think about how often you look at them when they are talking. Let them know they are important to you and worth taking a time to pay attention to, and then they will do the same to you and others.

Honesty is the Best Policy

Is it possible to respect a liar? Would you lie to someone that you respect? I don’t think so. If you do something wrong, admit it and apologize for it. While it may change the perception that our younger children have of us that we are perfect, it will show them that even mom and dad make mistakes and when they do they are able to admit it and apologize for it.

You Catch More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

If your child does something wrong, or doesn’t achieve the success you feel they should’ve don’t belittle them. Don’t embarrass or insult them. I am not saying to never tease your child, but tease during play time in a fun way, not after a defeat or disappointment. Compliment your child for what they have accomplished. Compliment them for being your child. Don’t overdo it so that it becomes false, compliments should be realistic. If you want to see a change in your child’s behavior focus on the positive things they are doing so that they will do more of those positive things.

Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You

You limit or restrict the way your children use your things, enter into your space such as your room. Do you show them that you have the same limits on yourself when it comes to their space and their things? In our house our children are to knock on a closed door before opening it and they are not to go into our bedroom unless they ask or are invited. So we do the same for them. If they are behind a closed door at home we knock before open the door and we don’t just barge in their rooms. I also don’t go through their things in their rooms when they aren’t there. I don’t need to, I trust and respect them. If you want your child to respect the boundaries you have set, then you have to respect those same boundaries when it comes to them.

Personal Value = Respect

Your child has to know that they have value as a human being, and that they should cherish who they are as people. This teaches self respect, because if they don’t respect themselves they can’t respect others. Encourage your child to take care of themselves properly, make sure they get enough rest, wear decent clean clothes, that they eat that they have pride in who they are. They will believe this is you believe it.

Build Their Independence

There are always age appropriate responsibilities a child can take on to foster independence and respect. If mom or dad trusts that they can handle a task then they must be able to.

Let Them Know You Love Them

“Oh my kids know I love them.” I am sure they do, but think about how good it feels to get a hug and a smooch for no reason at all. Don’t be afraid to show your kids how much you love them. You don’t have to smoother them with affection, but a kiss goodnight, a kiss goodbye and a hug when they come home can go a long way. 

Respect is an attitude. Being respectful helps a child succeed in life. If your children don’t have respect for peers, authority, or themselves, it’s almost impossible for them to succeed. A respectful child takes care of belongings and responsibilities, and a respectful child gets along with peers. Schools teach children about respect, but it is really you that has the most influence on how respectful your children become.