Category: government

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Now this judge just might have the answer

I don’t know about you but I hate to be driving down the road, have to stop at a light or stop sign and hear someone elses extremely loud music booming so loud you can’t even hear your own radio.

I really hate to admit it but I can’t remember who the judge is or even what state or city he is doing this but what this judge noticed was that there were a number of repeat offenders showing up in his court room charged with noise violations. Most of them were kids who’s parents simply paid their fine and off they went, only to return again at a later date, charged with the same thing yet again.

After giving it a little thought, he decided to sentence the repeat offenders to one hour of listening to different types of loud music from Barney singing ‘I love you, you love me’ to Barry Manilow singing ‘I can’t smile without you.’ After the hour was over, he would give them a little survey and if there happened to be a song in his collection he played that kept showing up as one that happened to be liked, it was removed and something else was added in it’s place.

He wants to make sure that most of the music is not something the kids like so they can finally learn what it’s like to have to listen to music they don’t want to listen to. The towns people have reported that it is working because there is much less noise all over the city. I think they need to start doing this everywhere.

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Important day in history

I am a bit of a history buff and just found out that today is a day to be celebrated in history.  See, today marks the celebration of the ACLU  anniversary of the US Supreme Courts decision on student free speech.  Here’s how it started:

On Tuesday, the non-profit organization the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a video and press release commemorating 40 years since the landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision involving freedom of speech in the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Tinker case was decided on February 24, 1969. The case involved students in Iowa who chose to wear black armbands with peace symbols in protest of the Vietnam War – in violation of a recent school board policy. In their statement, the ACLU compared issues of freedom of speech in the Tinker case to a more recent case, Gillman v. Holmes County School District, where a school district in Florida forbade students from wearing rainbow symbols in school in support of LGBT rights.

In the Tinker case, John and Mary Beth Tinker and another student decided to wear black armbands with peace symbols to school in protest of the Vietnam War. The school district heard of the students’ plans and decided to ban armbands in school. The three students case were represented by the ACLU of Iowa, and in a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs.

Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the Opinion of the Court: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights…at the schoolhouse gate.”

Unfortunately there are too many young people today that think there’s nothing they can do to make a difference.  Well these kids did just that.  They made a difference.  We all can make a difference if we do it right.  There should never be violence when we feel something needs to change.  There should only be peaceful means to make the changes we feel are important.  Violence never makes a positive change.

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Haiti

Haiti is such a poor country with so much poverty that we Americans could not imagine.  We think we have it bad, we live like kings compared to the people of Haiti.  They suffer every day and then something as horrific as this happens.

“Three days after the concrete building suddenly collapsed during a children’s party, killing at least 94 students and adults and severely injuring 150 more, Capt. Michael Isetan of Fairfax County, Va., said the chance of more survivors was remote. He also said the death toll won’t likely go much higher. U.S., French and Haitian firefighters used sonar, cameras and dogs Monday in the search for victims at a collapsed Haitian school, but as the stench of death rose from the wreckage, they no longer expected to find anyone else alive.” was written on November 10th.

What an awful tragedy. They are not even sure just how many people were in the building when it collapsed, though the school is believed to have had about 500 students. Haitian officials said some had time to escape when it began to fall. Some students weren’t at the school during the collapse because La Promise was holding a party requiring a donation of about 50 cents that poorer families could not afford, said Deputy Steven Benoit, who represents the area in the Chamber of Deputies.

That was one time that being poor probably was a blessing to some of those people because at least their children are still alive. My heart breaks at the thought of all of those children being trapped and killed in a building that should have been the safest place for them to be and yet it turned into a living HELL for the whole community.

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Did you vote?

I sure hope you took the time to go out and vote.  I am both ashamed and proud to let you know that this is the first year I have ever voted.  I was eligible the last time but had my head up something and didn’t realize the importance of it.  Now I do.  This is one of the most important rights we as Americans have and we should all exercise that right and vote.

Someone heard me complaining about something to do with our government and asked me if I voted in the last election.  I told them I had not and they told me I had no right to say anything then because I left it up to everyone else to choose our current government and if I wanted the right to complain, then I needed to vote.  Then and only then, they said, did I have a right to complain.  I thought about what they had said and I agree with them.  Well this time, I did my civic duty and I voted.  I hope you did too.

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Trains collide in California

A commuter train and a freight train collided in California killing at least 25 people.  How could this happen?  It’s obvious to me that someone somewhere was not paying attention and set these two trains on a collision course.  They think the number of injured is around 130 people.  The mayor of Los Angeles said this is the worst accident he has ever seen.  I’m sure that’s true for the approximately 250 firefighters that responded too.

Then less than an hour after that, a woman was killed in her car when it was hit by a train in Corona California.  The two had nothing to do with each other but what a coincidence,  I don’t think I would want to ride a train or go near the tracks in California.   My prayers are with the injured and the family of the many that lost their lives.

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That’s not a bill!!!

My daily mail usually consists of mainly an assorted junk mail and bills.  So imagine my delight to find only one single piece of mail, all by it’s lonesome, sitting in my box this afternoon.  It was almost like hitting the lottery when I realized this one piece of mail just so happened to be my tax rebate check.  Now that I know how much it is, Ineed to do some serious thought on what is the best way to use this.  I have to make it go as far as I possibly can and one things for sure, I will do that.  School will start again before you know it and my children will all need a lot of things for that so this will help a great deal.  It will also pay for a new comptuer too.

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Military Service


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My children’s father is in the military.  Sure I worry about him but at the same time, I am very proud to tell anyone that he is serving our country.  We may not have a perfect country but our country is seeing to it that his children are taken care of while he serves and for that, I appreciate everything that not only he is doing but what our country is doing for their service people.

Sometimes it’s not nearly enough to thank them for their what they are missing out on like seeing their children grow up but they knew this when they went in and we as a nation should respect them and their families and thank each and every one we know.