Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sappy and Sickening

While sitting peacefully on my sofa eating popcorn and channel surfing I landed in the backwash of a wave I rarely see...MSNBC. What made me stay in this wilderness of sap I will never know but there I was. The program I was watching was The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell or Let's Slobber Over Keith Olbermann.

O'Donnell droned on about how Olbermann was a wonderful purveyor of truth and his sacrificial mentor. It got so sappy there for a while I picked my feet up from the floor to avoid ..... well you know what.

Now, it's admirable to love your friends no matter their proclivity toward absurdity, but it would be wise to keep it in the family. On the other hand I guess those who regularly watch MSNBC are family, all ten of them. I was just an uninvited intruder.

The point is, Keith Olbermann was a vendor of unbridled hatred. His Op-Ed pieces were so filled with vitriol that he makes Sen Steven Cohen look mild and Hannity look like a choir boy. O'Donnell picked up the mantel with great enthusiasm.

Even when O'Donnell digressed from his journalistic obituary and attempted the news it was the attitudinal shadow of Olbermann and very little commentary worth enduring. Then it was back to the ramblings about Keith O.

Oh well, I'm sure MSNBC, if such a poll were taken, would come in behind Peewee Herman marries Yvonne.

O'Donnell while gasping for air did mention West Wing and how it has run for 8 (?) seasons and is highly rated. Duh..what does that have to do with the MSNBC debacle?

Then came Rachel Maddow sloshing through mire with her comment about the "Republicans in disarray." Maddow did you miss November 2, 2010?

I headed for bed and decided to leave a night light on in case I had nightmares.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Simmer Down so says the Editor

The following is a letter a friend, Cynthia Wadsworth, sent to our local paper:


Dear Editor,

Response to Simmer Down

Politicizing a Tragedy
Mr. Adamson is politicizing a horrible, senseless tragedy. This is the far left blaming the far right. Has the liberal left become so desperate that they must engage in shameful finger pointing at the conservative right? The finger pointing was immediate and it was totally irresponsible and Mr. Adamson is engaging in this finger pointing.
Jared Loughner, the shooter, had shown a tendency toward mental illness for years. His friend stated that he engaged Senator Giffords in a previous public meeting 3 years ago, by asking her a question that made no sense. He was known for rambling outbursts in math class and in the school library. His you tube video showed very little connections in his thoughts. He showed signs of paranoia. He admits to drug use. He failed an exam to join the Army because of his drug use. Does this explain his violent behavior? Perhaps the combination of drugs and mental illness will be to blame; we do not have that answer. It certainly does not excuse his behavior. It does not appear that he ever had an evaluation by a mental health professional even though his mental instability had been questioned by many who knew him.
What is missed is that in his ramblings posted on the internet and in some of his writings, is that he never mentions current political issues. He does not mention the vitriol that we have had crammed down our throats the last few days. There is no mention of the health care debate, or gun control issues. In my opinion he was so far out of touch with reality that he was not aware of these issues. His target could have been anyone from any political party. He just had access to Giffords over the last several years based on location. Had he lived in Alaska, it could have been Sarah Palin if he had access to her and was able to engage her in his ramblings. It could have been any politician in any state. Jared Loughner happened to live in Arizona.
We should question, instead, how this man fell through the cracks. We should question what is wrong with our mental health system when someone has had symptoms for years and no one pushed for this young man to get help as a teenager or young adult? He was dismissed by the college he attended and told not to return until he had received a mental health evaluation. He did not get one.
The words “simmer down” I have never heard used by grandparents or parents. I have only heard it used on Saturday Night Live. This is not the time to “simmer down.” Locally, some of us are having our property rights taken away by the town of West Jefferson without our permission. We must speak up or we will continue to lose our rights. I am sure “simmer down” is what many on the far left want those of us who are outspoken to do. I am sure that was the message given to us by the West Jefferson town aldermen in June when they paraded the police officers out the back door and then in the front door of town hall at the ETJ meeting. They wanted to be sure we “simmer down now” quoting the Saturday Night live version.
Giffords is outspoken and a trailblazer and I hope that she is able to recover from this senseless violence. We need more just like her. She would not want us to “simmer down.” I am also a traumatic brain injury survivor, and it is a long, long road to recovery and that road may have to be measured in years. Recovery is possible and I will pray that she is blessed with skilled caregivers and a loving family. This was a horrible tragedy and we must recognize it as such.

Cynthia Hardy Wadsworth RNC, BSN, CNNP
Neonatal Practitioner
West Jefferson, NC

The Motive of a Mad Man???

We knew it was going to happen but that does not make it any less disgusting.

Tucson, Arizona was the scene where a piece of garbage carrying a weapon shot and killed many innocent people and wounded many others. It was a violent act by a crazy man with a leftest past, but that did not stop the progressive pseudo-journalist, such those at CNN, MSNBC, Daily COS, moveon.org and others, from blaming the tea party activists and specifically Sarah Palin. As was said by President Obama's former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste," and believe me the liberals wasted no time in capitalizing on this crisis.

As the co-founder of the tea party movement in Ashe County, "We The People Of Ashe County," I am angered and offended by the relentless barrage of unfounded accusations cast at the conservative movement. Not one act of violence has ever been linked to our movement and our leadership will ensure that it never does.

Tea partiers are God fearing, America loving, and devoted to family citizens who want only the best for our county, state, and nation. However, those who champion the socialist agenda of the left care nothing about our republic and Constitution, and will place the Arizona tragedy well into the Ban-the-Guns mantra leaving our citizens helpless and at the mercy of such maniacs like the one in Tucson and pleading with an increasingly corrupt government to do what it cannot do--- protect us.

I am well acquainted with many tea party movements around the state and nation and I know the last thing we want is a nut-case in our midst and we will do everything we can to disassociated ourselves from such leaven.

The left's greatest fear is an educated society and our nation, thanks in large part to the tea party movement, is becoming increasingly more educated on matters of government and the Constitution and there is nothing more terrifying to the oligarchy than the subjects becoming informed.

"We The People of Ashe County" is the needed clarion call to liberty and freedom in our comunnity and if the people will listen we will see the fruit of our efforts in the education of our children as well as our adults and once again the knowledge of being an American will swell our hearts with pride and patriotism.

Kershaw Getty

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Death by union strangulation

The news from New York is not good. But then it rarely is. The major networks reported that New York city workers deliberately slowed down the clearing of snow from the streets of the "Big Apple" in order to protest budget cuts. The result (allegedly) was the death of an infant because the ambulance could not get to the hospital due to snow covered roads.

There has been an outcry from the union bosses that no employee would do, or be ordered to do, such at thing, to which I say balderdash. I was a member of a union spanning 30 plus years and I can stand four square on the knowledge that such can happen does happen and will happen in the future if the unions are allowed to continue unfettered and out of control.

I have no problem with collected bargaining for wages and benefits within corporations as long as reasonable limits are placed on such negotiations by scrupulous union officials and sensible corporate leaders. However, public service employees should not be unionized.

Teacher's unions are another problem. If our dear readers keep up with my writings they know that I greatly respect our teachers and the difficult job they have. My issue is not with them it is with the national and state unions that gridlock our education system and steal that precious commodity called knowledge from our children. With political correctness, global warming, recycling, touchy-feely indoctrination, and identity glorification, most supported by teacher's unions, little time is left for meaningful instructions and our children are being intellectually robbed.

Additionally, the regulations on unions should be a state issue and not a federal one, unless irrefutable evidence can be shown that the interstate commerce clause is solidly in play.

Unions had their place in America but I believe their time has passed.