Li:ritual, propriety, etiquette.Hsiao:love within the family (parents for children and children for parents. Yi: righteousness--the noblest way to act in a situation.Xin:honesty and trustworthiness.Jen:benevolence, humaneness towards others.Chung:loyalty to the state and authority.--Confucius (Kong Fuzi)
All articles appear in reverse chronological order [newest first].
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I believe the past is relevant, sometimes more than others of course. In most cases we are seeing history being repeated, so it is most relevant.
On the next day while speaking in Cleveland, Robert Kennedy gave an even more inspirational speech on ‘The Mindless Menace of Violence’. Nine weeks later, Robert Kennedy, like his older brother President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King, would also be assassinated.
On May 14, 1994 President Bill Clinton delivered a speech at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Landmark For Peace memorial at 17th and Broadway in Indianapolis.read the text of his speech.
On the next day while speaking in Cleveland, Robert Kennedy gave an even more inspirational speech on ‘The Mindless Menace of Violence’. (video) Nine weeks later, Robert Kennedy, like his older brother President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King, would also be assassinated.
On May 14, 1994 President Bill Clinton delivered a speech at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Landmark For Peace memorial at 17th and Broadway in Indianapolis.read the text of his speech.
The banner art from the top of James Francis Williams and Myrtle Ethel Montgomery's Marriage License. A 76 year old, still intact document. courtesy of Jo Littrell
In the family book we will need several pictures. Profile Pictures will be needed similar to the ones in the montage below. If you're not in the montage then I don't have a profile picture for you so send me one. If you don't like the one in the montage send me a different one. The profile picture should be a head and shoulders shot. It can not be a full body shot because the picture will be small in the profile part of the book. If you don't have a head and shoulder shot then you can 'crop' a larger picture. If you don't know how to crop a shot just send it to me and I will do it. All profile pictures will be cropped to a square. HOW TO SEND ME A PICTURE: Post and share to this group. Take a selfie and share it to this group. Facebook email (messenger) it to me. Email it to indianaglenn@gmail.com . Mail it to me at PO BOX 20794, Indianapolis, Indiana 46220-0794. OR call me to come and get it!!!!!.
How well do you know your Williams Family? Us the comments to identify (with picture number and name) as many as you can. No cheating by looking at other's responses.
reposted/updated from 7-6-14 Ducks, Canadian Geese, squirrels, chipmunks, river otters, muskrats, green heron, turtles, crawdads, great blue heron, and a big cat.
Just discovered some new neighbors on my patio. Was lighting the grill (only about 5 feet from the nest) when the mother duck flushed and scared me out of a year or two.
The incubation period is 25-30 days, so there goes grilling on Memorial Day, Independence weekend may be OK. Unfortunately, even though so many geese and ducks hatch around here, many don't survive for long. I'm just realizing one reason may be that most people let them hatch, but then shew them off once their born.
Well, I going to try to figure a way to set up a video 'blind'.
Actually, this is the 2nd family that moved onto my patio. Last weekend some morning doves started building a nest on top of my tool-shed, but they disappeared after a few days and the nest was poorly located and they never finished it. There's a light pole just outside of my patio that some birds nested in the last two years, but maintenance got around to fixing the broken glass pane this spring and those birds never returned. Use to be able to set on the patio at night and watch the silhouette of the family moving about when the lights came on.
A lot of people miss the point of the primaries. They are not, for lack of a better term, public elections. They are the parties election. Each party is holding there own internal election to select the 'parties' nominee. They get to establish their own rules and process.
They create the allusion of it being a public election by allowing any registered voter to participate (in most states), and by holding the primaries on government facilities. But at whose expense? You don’t think the parties foot the bill for the primaries do you?
The public is allowed to participate, but it is perfectly legitimate to 'stack' the process to keep it in the parties hands, this also creates the opportunity for non-party members to affect their selection process, ie. crossover voting in primaries to screw with the other parties selection process. To counteract crossover voting they maintain some control with the 'super-delegates' process, which keeps crossover voting from screwing with their party process.
By creating the allusion of fairness and openness they are perpetuating the power of their two-parties to discourage third parties. If any of the current candidates were to run (now or later) independent of the two parties they would be at a disadvantage because of the time missed and the taint of moving away from a party they previously claimed to support. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of winning, but when did that last happen? Because Bernie has always claimed to be independent he might survive such a move. On the Republican side, Trump could make such a move, but he would be hurt because it would lend criticism to a common believe that he was being duplicitous in his party affiliation (but then his negative traits have failed to hurt him so far), all the other candidates would have a lot of explaining to do if they made such a move.
We have a 2 party system that dominates the process and part of that dominance is their control over down ballot politics... ie., the party establishment. How is it that 'party' primaries are funded by tax payers.
This is how the 2 parties exclude any real chance of a third party or independent candidate from running a viable national campaign. The pledged delegates is another way they guarantee an independent like Bernie can't win, or a renegade populist like Trump when running within one of the two parties.
Trump is no more a Conservative, let alone a Republican than Bernie is a party Democrat.
To become viable they have to run under a party banner... if they make enough progress and have a big enough ego then they could mount an independent 3rd ticket run, but they wouldn't stand a chance if they ran that way from the beginning. (Remember Ross Perot). Whats the first response you will hear if Bernie or trump mention an independent run at this point? It will be that they are handing the election to the other party? So run with us against them, or don't run at all. That's the way the two parties want it so lets not complain when they reluctantly play the game according to the two parties rules.
This is the system created by party politics, not the constitution, to guarantee their shared dominance.
The fairest way would be for the parties to limit primary voting to party members and declared party affiliations only. This would remove most voters from the primaries, but a lot of voters don't bother to vote in the primaries anyway. A lot of independents don't vote in primaries either... that's why they are independents... no party alliance. I say a lot because most people claiming to be independents are really just democrats and republicans trying to appear neutral, for various reasons; trolling. denial, and indecisiveness, but nobody wants to admit to any of those positions.
Myself, I don't vote in primaries... I try to be issues oriented and stay open-minded until the general election. The entire primary process does little more than to create a money raising machine that runs for 8 months, allowing non-contenders to raise funds to bankroll at a later date. If you wanted to effectively elect a party representative you would hold your debates, have one or two days of primaries across the nation and then begin the general campaign. But that wouldn't allow for media drama, big-buck fund-raising, or political maneuvering by otherwise insignificant lower tier candidates. It will never happen because it would create an opportunity for, and encourage, more spontaneous third-party candidates (the best weapon against a monopolistic 2-party system.)
Do you realize we spend more time selecting nominees than we do electing the office-holder? Over a year of debates and primaries versus 3-5 months of general election campaigning.
Below are screen-shots from a Facebook conversation in response to this meme/graphic concerning the importance of voting and attempts to obstruct voting. The meme does not specifically target Voter ID laws but that is the emphasis of the discussion that developed.
You can leave comments here, but if you are on Facebook I suggest you leave your comments there. I will update this post with screen-shots of your comments. I will blackout identifying information on those screen-shots unless you specifically request that I don’t.
All screen-shots are linked to the original Facebook conversation and their are links to relevant information below.
“There is no credible evidence that in-person impersonation voter fraud -- the only type of fraud that photo IDs could prevent – is even a minor problem. “
“Proponents of voter ID laws have failed to demonstrate that individual, in -person voter fraud is even a minor problem anywhere in the country. “
“Multiple studies have found that almost all cases of in-person impersonation voter “fraud” are the result of a voter making an honest mistake, and that even these mistakes are extremely infrequent. “
“It is important, instead, to focus on both expanding the franchise and ending practices which actually threaten the integrity of the elections, such as improper purges of voters, voter harassment, and distribution of false information about when and where to vote. None of these issues, however, are addressed or can be resolved with a photo ID requirement. “
“VOTING IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote. The right to vote is protected by more constitutional amendments - the 1st, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th - than any other right we enjoy as Americans. There are additional federal and state statutes which guarantee and protect voting rights, as well as declarations by the Supreme Court that the right to vote is fundamental because it is protective of all our other rights.”
"Voter ID laws have the potential to deny the right to vote to thousands of registered voters who do not have, and, in many instances, cannot obtain the limited identification states accept for voting. Many of these Americans cannot afford to pay for the required documents needed to secure a government-issued photo ID. As such, these laws impede access to the polls and are at odds with the fundamental right to vote. "
In closing, I repeatedly pointed out that Voter ID fraud, of the type that these Voter ID laws are supposed to stop are not a problem that rises to the level of influencing elections. I asked Steve to provide information that this was a real problem and he failed to do so. It is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and this gives rise to the question, “What is their real purpose?”
Here is information on how much of a problem Voter ID fraud of this nature really is (this comes from propublica):
“There have been only a small number of fraud cases resulting in a conviction. A New York Times analysis from 2007 identified 120 cases filed by the Justice Department over five years. These cases, many of which stemmed from mistakenly filled registration forms or misunderstanding over voter eligibility, resulted in 86 convictions. There are “very few documented cases,” said UC-Irvine professor and election law specialist Rick Hasen. “When you do see election fraud, it invariably involves election officials taking steps to change election results or it involves absentee ballots which voter ID laws can’t prevent,” he said. An analysis by News21, a national investigative reporting project, identified 10 voter impersonation cases out of 2,068 alleged election fraud cases since 2000 — or one out of every 15 million prospective voters.”
What is the real purpose of these laws? here is one explanation of many examples(from the Boston Globe):
“…OK, but let’s for a second pretend that Alabama’s GOP-led state legislature had its heart in the right place and was truly committed to the free and legal right of all its citizens to vote — and that it in no way was trying to limit voting rights. How then does one explain the fact that Alabama is now closing 31 driver’s license offices that are predominately located in African-American communities? Wait, did I say predominately? Sorry, I meant to say: almost exclusively. You see, according to John Archibald, a columnist for the Alabama Media Group and Al.com, “Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their [driver’s] license office closed. Every one.” So, to put this in more layman’s terms: The state of Alabama has, by law, made it more difficult for voters in its state to vote. According to the Alabama secretary of state, about 500,000 state residents in 2014 didn’t have a photo ID (that’s 20 percent of those registered to vote). The law disproportionately affects poor people who would find it the most difficult to get a photo ID (Alabama helpfully raised the fee more than 50 percent for getting a driver’s license) and, in particular African-Americans, who voted in fewer numbers in 2014 in places where voter ID laws went into effect. In Alabama in 2014, the state had the lowest turnout in an election since 1986. Now Alabama is closing offices where state residents can get a license with a photo ID and doing it almost exclusively in places where black people live…”
So the solution to a problem, that is estimated at less than 1 in 15million prospective voters, is to make it harder for 20% (in Alabama) of voters to vote. Followed by making it harder to obtain the needed ID by closing offices that issue the IDs, in counties that are at least 75% African-Americans. Is it really hard to see the purpose of these laws. No, and its no harder to see that this true purpose is the work and effort of the Republican’t party.
Pictures from the Park and Peace Memorial in Indianapolis. Dedicated to Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy who, on the night of Dr. King's assassination, delivered an impromptu speech that many credit with saving the city of Indianapolis from the violence that visited many cities across the country. GlennDL
On the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, JR, while speaking in Cleveland, Robert Kennedy gave an even more inspirational speech on ‘The Mindless Menace of Violence’. Nine weeks later, Robert Kennedy, like his older brother President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King, would also be assassinated.
Robert F. Kennedy Cleveland City Club April 5, 1968
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
“America today is looking more and more like a colonial economy, with a system increasingly tilted toward enriching the wealthy 1 percent and serving the mercantile needs of multinational corporations with little allegiance to our country.
These radical forces already dominate the national press, with Fox News and talk radio snugly in the pocket of the corporate Right. This is the first time in American history that corporate and media interests have been so clearly and so perilously aligned. With the media in their hands, and unlimited money, the final strategy of Rove, Koch, the Chamber of Commerce, and others of that ilk is to permanently cripple representative democracy by stopping Americans from voting.
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