TGIF

Travel some this Easter weekend.

Judge for Yourself

Is Easter Pagan?                                 
by Alex Hutchins

Christian is a word used to describe those who are followers and believe in Jesus.  The word comes from the Greek word, “Christos,” and dates back to a period of time before Christ to describe a Greek Cult.  Over the years the word has become to describe “followers of Christ” but that is not really the point of Biblical scriptures; on the contrary, Jesus wanted disciples and the apostle Paul wanted people who were Christ-like.  There is a difference between being Christ-like and just being a follower.

Easter cannot be found in the Bible

If one is a Bible Christian, then one worships on that which is found in the Holy Scriptures since God demands that worship be conducted as He commanded and does not tolerate changes in His format or protocols.

Easter can be found in Pagan celebrations

Pagan were captivated by and praised animal and human fertility, reproduction, and sexual rites of passage.  Goddesses of love were worshipped with parties of immorality.

Meaning of Easter

The word is derived from “Eostre” and is the name given to the goddess of dawn, a pagan festival that was celebrated each spring, actually denoting the first day of spring.

Date of Easter

Is it merely coincidental that the dates of the Jewish “Passover” and the “sexual rites of spring” are at the same time?  And, if that is so, then why has a sunrise service been added to the Christian celebration?

Customs

More importantly than the above date, why is the Easter Bunny linked to a Christian celebration or the Jewish “Passover?”  And, why a basket of eggs when rabbits do not lay eggs?  Is not the “egg” a symbol of fertility which links it more to the Pagans than to the Christians.

How curious we Christians have become . . .

To read more and link to Biblical scripture proof, click here

YES!

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DR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Memorial to Dr King in Washington, D.C.

He preached non Violence

by Victor M Adamus

The anniversary of the death of a great man who spoke out against violence in his lifetime, was overshadowed this week by violence, the killing of a young black boy in Central Florida.  Those who did take time out to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. were church groups and some civic groups but the fanfare and media coverage was focused on getting the shooter arrested for Trayvon Martin.

It’s been 44 years since Dr King was assassinated and it makes a person wonder how far we’ve come or not at all with 21 states allowing by law, vigilantes having the right to gun down people at will as long as they say they’ve been threatened.  The result is the same though.  Death.  Someone always gets killed and like 44 years ago, the shooters went unpunished then and today they go unpunished too.  So it’s not a good time to remember someone who stood out for non-violence when the lessons he taught have all but been ignored.

Two of Kings children did launch an effort in his memory to prevent youth violence.  King was shot at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, TN on April 4^th, 1968.  Among the people with him at the time, Jesse Jackson spoke to the hope that bloodshed in this America would cease.

“Stop neighborhood killing,” he said. “Stop the violence. Stop suspending our children from schools. Stop the violence. Love each other. Stop banks from foreclosing our houses. Stop the Violence. Keep hope alive.”

Keeping hope alive isn’t going to work in a mostly white, ignorant group, of gun happy racists.  The laws lobbied by the NRA are on the books and over the past seven years here in Florida, shootings have gone up, prosecutions for murder, under the Stand Your Ground Law, has gone down.  The only difference today is the shooters don’t have to dress up in white cloth and white hoods. 

If we really want a non-violent society, get gun control laws on the books that take away hand guns from the public that has no training in the use of firearms.  The mentally affected like the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby in Arizona, the former Marine in White Plains, New York shot by racists cops, and the young high school boy Trayvon Martin who was coming home holding a bag of Skittle candy and an ice tea. 

Those are only three examples of the hundreds out there.  But something has to be done to curb this violence, not enhance it, so the mentally unbalanced, the racists, the young, anyone looking for a live target can pick up a weapon and hit the streets.  We need gun control now more than ever.

New gun control laws would be a good way to memorialize a man who spoke against violence.

. . . Good Old Boys . . .

The Masters, played every year at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., is one of golf's four majors. It is a tournament founded by Bobby Jones and revered by golfers everywhere. The Augusta course includes towering pines, azaleas and dogwoods everywhere and are in full bloom spring just in time for the Masters.The property was an indigo plantation until 1857, when Belgian Baron Louis Mathieu Edouard Berckmans purchased the land.

 The Masters Tournament was started in 1934 and has been played every year since then.  Steeped in tradition, the Augusta National Golf Club allows women to play golf at the club but denies them membership to the Club.  However, this year that “gold ole boy” rule will be tested.  Typically, the Club automatically gives a membership to the tournament sponsors; but, the CEO of IBM who is this year’s sponsor, is Virginia Rometty.  It is rumored that she snorkels on vacation instead of golfing but that is not the point.

So, what is it about the male mentality that looks down its nose at pretty much all women outside of the bedroom?

And, what is it about the female psychic to have such a tenacious and relentless drive to be more like a man both inside and outside of the bedroom?

Republican candiddates . . .
Good Ole Boys

Women do not just want to possess upper management positions in business, but they also want to smoke cigars like males, drink and take drugs like males; in fact, many of these women seek to compete against males and hopefully win in almost everything.  While that is admirable from some from this observer on the sidelines, I am amused that this strategy brings with it an increase in the same illnesses that have taken males to an early grave.

Yet, in my opinion, women make better Leaders and Managers than their male counterparts because not only did they work harder to get there but they do not take their position for granted like most males do.

While women leaders and managers are just as “bottom-line” oriented as males, they do so with finesse and compassion and not with intimidation and rank.

Wall Street Bankers . . .
Good Ole Boys

Watch out guys  . . .

more women earning college degrees than males.

more women globally earn college degrees than males

BEST QUOTE THIS WEEK

From a proposed Arizona law that could mean a virgin is pregnant:


That’s bad in and of itself, but taking a step back and looking at the big picture makes this law look even more sinister. Medically speaking, pregnancy starts when a fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining. Anti-choicers have attempted to define it earlier with their failed attempts to pass “personhood” law that would define not just pregnancy, but “personhood” as beginning at conception. Now in Arizona, they’re trying to argue that you’re pregnant a couple of weeks before you even had the sex that resulted in your pregnancy. --Amanda Marcotte

THE WAR ON WOMEN

Homeland Terrorism
By Victor Adamus

It’s inspiring to read about a person named Karen who has no political background, per se, reach a boiling point and start a women’s movement locally in her City of Washington, D.C. and be successful.  Karen had had enough of the war waged against women on almost every front by conservatives and evangelicals, conservative talk show radio and Fox News.  Women’s health issues are a target of the right and in one weekend Karen was able to get 500 women and men to support her protest day coming up on 28 April 2012.  Since her website was up she won the support of the National Association of Women (NOW); Moveon.gov; the Coffee Party, the Coalition of Labor Union Women; and the National League of Latin American Women.  Planned Parenthood, in most states, have also joined in their support.  Karen is one of thousands, if not millions, who see this fight as a war against conservative men in politics voting for laws against women that amount to a Homeland Terrorism.  Now a national day to protest, the movement has listed at least one city in each state to inform legislators “enough is enough”.

“There's a war being waged on women! The reproductive rights issue is only one of the targets. From stripping education budgets that gravely rob our children, to rolling back equal pay laws and domestic violence protections, to changing Voting laws that disproportionately effect minorities and WOMEN -- we say, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”  Her motto for the protest march later this month.

Leading the news media is MSNBC. Shows like the Ed Show keep women’s issues in the news daily.  Rachel Maddow, same network, and Lawrence O’donnell cover in depth news of the war on women nightly and delve into the issues state by state.  These shows have made a dramatic impact on the women population and men who support women’s rights.

Rachel Maddow

In Texas Planned Parenthood had a special place in the health care market, taking over patients private doctors didn’t want.  Governor Rick Perry (R) cut Medicaid from the State budget and closed all Planned Parenthood offices available to women under a ruling that they were doing abortions.  Then Perry sued the Obama Administration expecting to continue to receive funds to help approximately 330,000 women that were taken out of the health care loop because they couldn’t afford to pay health care premiums.  There is no safety net for even the women who need breast cancer screening and other tests.  It appears to be unique to states that have a Republican Governor.

In Virginia Governor Bob McDonald (R) pulled aside an amendment calling for women seeking an abortion to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound, so invasive it tested the rape laws in the State.  Virginia was made a mockery on various YouTubes including Saturday Night Live (SNL), one which showed a Trans-Vaginal Airline which forced women to wait 24 hours for a flight and have the ultrasound test before boarding.

These attacks against women are not funny.  As one state worker wrote in a tweet, “Everyone in the Virginia legislature need to have an anal probe to find their brains”.  McDonald is rumored to be on a short list of Vice Presidential Candidates if Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for President.  Romney has lost an estimated 14% of the female vote, nationwide, because of Republican legislators alienating women over women health care issues and that number could grow as other states sign into law Taliban type legislation against women’s reproductive rights.

RED = War on Women States

99 Islam legal maxims

Muslim Jurists have grouped questions of jurisprudence under certain general rules each one of which embraces a large number of questions. These general rules are taken in the treatises on jurisprudence, as justification to prove these question. (These preliminary study of these rules facilitates the comprehension of the questions and serves to fix them on the mind.) Consequently the ninety-nine (99) rules of jurisprudence have been collected together ... Although a few of them, taken alone, admit of certain exceptions, their general application is in no way invalidated thereby, since they are closely interrelated.

The original Arabic is basically quoted from the original Arabic text by Mahmasani.
The English translation is from the translation by Farhat J. Ziadeh.

means PEACE in Arabic

Article 1: "Matters are determined according to intention"

Article 2: "In contracts effect is given to intention and meaning and not words and forms"

Article 3: "Certainty is not dispelled, (does not dispel caused), by doubt."

Article 4: "It is a fundamental principle that a thing shall remain as it was originally."

Article 5: "Things which have been existence from time immemorial shall be left as they were."

Article 6: "Injury cannot exist from the time immemorial."

NOTE:  this one I find particularly interesting because of all the long-standing conflicts in the Middle East

Article 7: "Freedom from liability is a fundamental principle."

Article 8: "Non-existence is a fundamental presumption attached to intervening (transitory) attributes."

Article 9: "Judgment shall be given in respect to any matter, which has been proof at any particular time, unless the contrary is proved"

Article 10: "It is a fundamental principle that any new event shall be regarded as happening at the time nearest to the present."

To read all 99 maxims, click here . . .

WHAT A GREAT IDEA

Rights of Women in the US of A

War on Women:  An Ongoing Male Battle

Eleanor Roosevelt

As early as 1848, women who had been denied their “rights”, were attempting to change the direction of a male dominated society and “the first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. After 2 days of discussion and debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.”  Read more

Is it interesting to note that women were voicing their concerns about how males were treating them and 168 years later many of those concerns have never been adequately addressed, have they?.  As we look backwards, “The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Based on the American Declaration of Independence, the Sentiments demanded equality with men before the law, in education and employment. Here, too, was the first pronouncement demanding that women be given the right to vote.”  Read more 

As a liberal (no party affiliation) growing up and now as a senior citizen conservative (fiscal policies) liberal (still no real party affiliations), I still maintain that my “on loan” body from God is mine to do with as I please. 

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And, when I speak about my body, I am not just referring to me or to American males or global males but to mankind, both male and female. 

And, since it is my body, then Government nor Religion nor anybody else or entity has the “right” to tell me how to treat my body. 

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I am basing this claim on that age where one becomes an adult, even though that age not only differs from state to state but it varies in terms of adult responsibility. 

Some court jurisdictions say 16 or 17 is an adult, whereas the military without parental approval says you have to be a little older to kill as an adult and still older for an adult to be able to drink alcohol. 

No wonder males get confused when they attempt to decide what women can or cannot do with their bodies. 

Of course, it is very difficult to legislate the age a woman must be to give birth, but if she is under a certain age, then the male responsible for insemination can be charged with statutory rape; however, should the female be forced to give birth, if the sex was not consentual or even if it was, does she not have the right to do with her body what she wants?  As opposed to being told what to do by a group of “Baptist Belt” males who have no idea and never will have any idea of what it is like to be pregnant and give birth.

And, believe me, I understand the religious implications here, I really do, but those religious implications should be between the female and her Creator not a male “third party” intermediary.

Contraception and Abortion

 are decisions that women should make and

it is ludicrous to think that men should be allowed

to make these decisions on behalf of women.

JUDGES MAY BE OUR WORST ENEMIES

Siding with security needs over privacy rights, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that jailers may subject people arrested for minor offenses to invasive strip searches.

By a 5-4 vote, the court rejected a challenge from a New Jersey man who argued it's unconstitutional to force everyone to strip down for inspection. Albert Florence was arrested by a state trooper because of an error in the state's records that mistakenly said he was wanted on an outstanding warrant for an unpaid fine. Even if the warrant had been valid, failure to pay a fine is not a crime in New Jersey.

THE WAR ON WOMEN

Health Concerns Mount With
A Flurry of Attacks on
Women’s Reproductive Rights

By Victor M Adamus

It started with an electorate in 14 states voting for Republican candidates to solve the State’s economy and create jobs and has ended with Governors and conservatives defunding Planned Parenthood and passing legislation the fringe right wants which are laws that skirt Roe v Wade by imposing on women transvaginal testing before abortions or having doctors document who they performed an abortion on, making the names public and even telling rape victims abortion can cause breast cancer when that is totally false and could lead to lawsuits against the States.  The cancer claim language has been pulled in States where Attorneys have warned the Republican body has crossed the line. 

Women are not an interest group, yet they comprise a huge percentage of the electorate nationwide.  They are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives.  They also know more than any government about how to care for their own bodies.  These laws are a sign of Big Government, Taliban type legislation leaking into our democratic base to put women’s issues, women themselves under the evangelical thumb.  Although there are also women who support these invasive measures, most don’t.  Men who hate women wield an unbelievable amount of power, including their standard bearer Rush Limbaugh who attacked a young lawyer, testifying on Capitol Hill, as a whore.

In Texas, Governor Rick Perry, cut Planned Parenthood from the budget and denied accepting the federal monies that flowed to the state to give pre-natal care and breast screening to over 330,000 women.  A voting block of women in that state could change the legislators this November and hand the state to Barack Obama’s re-election bid.

The issues surrounding this War on Women have political and social implications.  It’s hard to understand why conservatives would drop important issues like the economy and jobs and head off with the fringe right, the Tea Party souls bent on returning the country to the 18^th Century.  One would think it would be difficult to keep ones job as Senator or Congressman by slamming this anti-women legislation down the electorate’s throat in an election year. 

We will offer what we are wondering about concerning this strange attack on women and offer some facts and the people involved later in the week.  It’s important enough to cover what we know and make recommendations of what women could do.  One would be to unite and there’s a good place to start.  Sign up at EMILY’S.

CULTURE CHANGE

CROOKS, Liars, and the rest of us . . .

By Alex Hutchins

Kinda reminds me of a small European village during WWII as portrayed by Hollywood; but, I assure you, this is no European village, it is a very large, wealthy, natural resource laden country; it is my birthplace and it my home for as long as I live; yet, it has turned into a “gambling casino free-for-all” mentality leaving the rest of us amidst groups of crooks and cowards, blessed in part by one of our self-endowed right of free speech; and yet, we seem to more endowed with greed that with anything else.

This trinity of souls, still referred to as Americans, rests on the “fruits” of previous labors and accomplishments, seldom venturing out of its tortoise shell surroundings, unless being hauled into court (and ultimately going to jail), or prancing and dancing behinds the skirts of our political party mistresses, or finding ourselves in awe because we cannot comprehend the witch (sic) into which this country has turned.  If we were in the UK (which we are not) we would hear a “God save the Queen” shout out, but here in our “holier than thou” secret gardens we hear football screaming “Amens!” 

And, speaking of football, isn’t it interesting that the Football Commissioner finally penalized the New Orleans Saints for having and condoning a on-the-field “hit squad?”  But, for me, it is not as amazing as hearing that Madoff’s biographer has made a statement that she thinks Madoff would rather have people see him as a liar than as a failure.  With these two scenarios alone, we can clearly and easily see that America has made a culture change.

This culture change can also be seen in several States passing “Stand Your Ground” laws where Americans can shoot DEAD other Americans who they perceive to be threatening them.  How wonderfully stupid is that:  allowing the average person to solely define the word “threatening”?  Only in America, as they say – whoever “they” might be.

We have Crooks and Liars in both Political Parties, in our Businesses (both large and small), in our School Systems and Religious Institutions, among our “Role Models” and parents, neighbors, and friends and in some cases among ourselves when we take office supplies from work home with us.  It is a culture change pure and simple.

When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, it was “cool” to rip off each other and especially the US Government, especially the IRS when filing taxes and the attitude was captured in the lyrics of Steppenwolf’s song, Fortunate One.  I recall people working for cash to avoid taxes, and how some college students finding a way to receive Government grants when they did not qualify or actually needed them; but, many adults thought those people were “oh, so clever.” 

The problem with living in a society of “Crooks and Liars,” is that the damage is minimal if accomplished on a small scale; but, almost exponential (I would suggest) if perpetrated on a large scale.  For me, therein lies the problem.  As our “problem” increases and intensifies financially then so too is the downside of this culture change.  For instance, if I steal office supplies for work worth a dollar or two or stay on break a little longer than usual robbing the company of productivity and I am the only one in the company that does this; then, the downside to the company is minimal.  However, if 90% of the employees do this on a regular basis, then the potential financial loss can be huge (relative speaking).  If this culture change attitude (crooks and liars) is expand to 80% of our businesses is again huge (relatively speaking).

This financial loss does not even compare to the financial impact on Americans when our “crooks and liars” attitude is applied to investments, real estate, and retirement programs.  Now, we can not only visualize this phenomenon but actually experience it first-hand.  Hypocritically, we are infuriated, angry, and bitter to say the least because now we are talking about OUR money and not someone else’s money.  

We are angry with the 1% when in reality it is the additional 9% (or 10%) that has really exacerbated the “crooks and liars” problem for the rest of us.  And, depending upon where you are on the “rest of us” continuum is a predictor of how financially devastating the “crooks and liars” attitude will be “played-out” on you.

But, we should realize that the remaining 90% has tools with which the 10% will never be able to compete.  First, we have the vote and the power of our collective votes to remove all the assholes from office from top to bottom.  Second, we have purchasing power and we can choose to either spend our money or not spend our money.  We can also do this collectively. 

Did our “crooks and liars” attitude start in the 50’s and 60’s by a few and gradually grow to encompass a majority or is this attitude a natural by-product of any affluent society?  The growth of a society (affluence and wealth) is predicated upon greed; otherwise, there would be no growth at all – simplistic but true.

Can you imagine what life would be like in the United States if no one ever dreamed of being in the 1% or even in the 10% but all were content on remaining less than that? 

What unintended consequences would that culture change mentality cause here or for that matter in the rest of the world who may or may not have adopted our same philosophy?

Which would be worse?

SUNDAY FUNNIES

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Click to enlarge.  SCOTUS!