EDITORIALS

Off Of My Chest

  I have a few things I'd like to get off of my chest.  Please bear with me ...

  I was recently reminded of my duties as a citizen by reading a quote from Dr. B. Franklin. As the story goes, another delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Dr. James McHenry, was taking notes after the final day of deliberation.  He noticed a lady walk past Dr. Benjamin Franklin and ask, "Well Doctor, what have we got ... a republic or a monarchy?"  According to Dr. McHenry, Dr. Franklin replied, "A republic ... if you can keep it." 

  The next big video game should be called "POLITICIAN."  I'll let your imagination run with that one.

 - SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said she "erred" in allowing a former agency official who benefitted financially from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme to play a key role crafting policy on how Madoff's victims should be compensated.  Every day I read something like this and I begin to feel sick.  The SEC Chairman is supposed to be a watchdog for the investor.  This person can't even keep track of who's been hired.  I can only guess that she's paid well and didn't lose money in Madoff's wake.  Do we really deserve this?

 - Only 20% of our elected officials have served in the military.  Given the state of our military, this sounds about right.  The Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta served 2 years (1962-1964) in the Army as a junior officer in the Army's Office of Military Intelligence.  With the exception of about 4 years in the 1970s, Panetta was a totally political creature.  A republican until 1971.  A democrat up to the present.  I'm not surprised to hear that his office has turned to shrinking manpower instead of shrinking the bloated DoD procurement budget.  The U.S. now has 2, 5th generation fighter jets that are grounded.  The F-35 Lightning and the F-22 Raptor are the most expensive military aircraft ever built.  Neither works correctly.  Do we really deserve this?

 - David Petraeus was the 3 star U.S. Army General in charge of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in September 2011.  On December, 2011, the Department of Defense reported that a sophisticated, stealth, spy drone was captured ... by Iran.  The RQ-170 Sentinel drone was one of the U.S.'s most advanced, remote controlled asset.   I've got $100 that says that within 2-3 months either Russia or China will own this device.  The price ... just a few measly instruments needed to develop nuclear weapons.  Congratulations.  Our Intelligence community strikes again.  The best spies in the world couldn't have done better.  Who was fired?  Do we really deserve this?

 - Supreme Court Justice Breyer stated, "... Americans have accepted the Supreme Court as the final word."   In Kelo V. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that your property could be taken away if the city decided it needed it more than you.  In Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations and unions have the same 1st Amendment rights as individuals and could spend all the money they wanted to on elections.  This decision guarantees that our next President will be chosen by currency and not character.  Once again another Washington lawyer is so out of touch with the public at large that he/she's lost.  We don't "accept" ... lawyers and lawmakers have forced this on us ... we have no choice or recourse short of armed insurrection.  Do we really deserve this?

 - 1 in every 7 Americans now lives in "poverty."  Politicians refer to us as the "little people."  In 2010, Alabama recorded over 21,000 divorces.  While the unemployment lines appear to get shorter, the list of people literally giving up on finding gainful employment has risen to record levels.  Alabama is emulating Detroit by placing the majority of it's eggs in the automotive basket.  Guess what happened to Detroit?  Is Alabama just one financial adjustment away from employment disaster?  Has industry become over-regulated or is it just being made to be more responsible to it's environment?  Why are we attempting to make our government responsible for producing jobs?  Do we really deserve this?

  A new Popeye's fast food restaurant opened in Center Point last year.  The food was NOT better, just different.

  The prices at the Wal-Mart grocery store are lower than other stores.  The service absolutely sucks!

  Has anyone seen Arthur Payne?  He's our Representative to the Alabama State House.  He's never addressed the Center Point City Council or held even one town hall meeting in our fair city.  He needs to go!

   Did you know that a dentist invented the electric chair?  Oddly enough that seems fitting.

    How do you like paying for commercials? Let me see if I can get this straight here.  Companies hire advertising companies to make commercials.  Then companies pay broadcasting companies to transmit those commercials.  Now here's where I get angry.  The public watching cable television (Cox, Warner, Charter) or satellite television (DISH or DIRECTV) or broadband broadcast subscribers (U-Verse) ARE ACTUALLY PAYING TO WATCH THESE COMMERCIALS.
  I truly think this is wrong and should be addressed to those broadcast companies seeking licenses to peddle their wares in  our communities (desiring to franchise into a city).  I would feel less like an idiot, whenever I watch television, if I knew I was not paying to watch these insulting commercials.  In fact, I truly believe that we, the public at large, should charge these broadcast companies a fee to allow them to advertise to our homes.

  Additionally, some notes to those vulgar advertisers:

• If your advertisement literally screams at me, rest assured that I will never shop at any of your establishments ... EVER.

• If you are selling drugs, take note that I will not ask any physician attending to me about any drug you are peddling.  I trust my doctor to prescribe proper medications ... that's what I'm paying her/him for!

• Pets are animals.  I will never ... ever feed any animal a food labeled or described as "gourmet."  Get real ... my dog used to lick his butt.

• If I watch a television show and see your advertisement more than once ... you will never get one single dollar from me and I will attempt to convince my friends to do the same.

• Insurance companies should reduce costs by cutting back on advertising and reducing the prices they charge by as much.  Word of mouth is the most powerful advertiser you numbskulls!

• I literally despise those minute advertisements that appear at the bottom of the screen while I attempt to stay entertained.

• Bowl games should not take the name of their advertiser!  Really guys.  What's next?  The Morning's Gift Douche Orange Bowl?  Can you make it any more idiotic?  Oops!  I forgot about the Insanely Expensive Advertising, Half Time Extravaganza, Screaming Annoying Washed Up Retired Commentators, Super Bowl.  20 hours worth of senseless minutia followed by 60 minutes worth of athletics, followed by another 5 hours of somebody explaining to you what you just saw.  That's one of the reasons I don't watch pro football anymore.  And don't get me started about this BCS National Champions stuff.  I'd be more impressed if I knew those football players were actually getting an education and not just preparing for the NFL (even though they had to hire someone to explain the big words on the contracts).

• News broadcasts are some of the biggest advertising whores.  If you ever advertise on a news program, I will NEVER purchase your products.  Five minutes of news and 15 minutes of screaming.  And to all those phony, plastic, over make-upped, monitor reading ass-clowns attempting to emulate true news reporters ... wake up.  Sadly, I get more real, current, relevant news these days watching either The BBC or Al-Jazeera.  You sorry charlatans should be ashamed.

   Finally (whew!), I don't normally read anything that emanates from anything associated with the Southern Baptist Convention.  Recently though, I came across a quote from a Dr. Adrian Rogers, a three time President of this organization.  Regardless of his past employment, his words could not seem truer and I wanted to share them with you guys.  Here goes ...

Photo gallery of Reed-Harvey Park.  Click on the picture for a larger view.

This is a map (courtesy of MAPQUEST.com) of the location of the property. The red star indicates the approximate location.	This is the "well" itself. The city "seal."	This is the house that was purchased along with the property and the well.	This is the old "Harvey's Florist" building ... also located on the property.	This is a view of the property from the small building above.
This is a side view of the "florist" building.	This building, also located on the property, appears to be a small maintenance, utility, or storage building.	This is a storage building located directly behind the house on the property.	The pillars are repaired and the roof span wires are in place. The repairs are getting off of the ground.	New pillar cap.
The concrete benches have been purchased.	Notice ... no more brush barrier and no more privacy.	Nearby homes are exposed.	The new roof is finally on.	This is the inside view of the new roof.
The repaired pillars are attached to the new roof.	A look inside of the new roof as attached.	The new playground.	Senior citizen's Center almost complete.	Bridge and waterwheel at park.
This is the new Senior Citizens Center.	This is the completed playground.	This is a close up of one of the park's new bridges to the new pedestrian walk-way.	This is part of the park's new pedestrian walk-way.	The new veterans memorial stone.
The memorial stone's tribute to our POWs.	The rear view of the memorial stone.

 

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Want to email me?  My email address is jgsmailbox@bellsouth.net.