Saturday, November 18, 2023

So What Can't A Woman Do?

Women have made great strides in the world and in America over the past 50 years.

We now have women as U S Army Rangers!

We now have women as in Naval Special Warfare Combat Craft SWCC crew.

We now have women in the U S Army Special Forces!

We now have women that are fighter and bomber pilots in the Air Force, Navy, and Marines!

We now have women in the pipeline to become Navy Seals, and Air Force Combat Controllers!

We have women doctors, lawyers, dentists, politicians, airline pilots, cruise ship captains, and every other civilian and military job that there is.

SO WHAT CAN'T A WOMAN DO?  She's not in control of her own body.  She can't decide if she wants to end an unwanted pregnancy.  A MAN has to do that, and he's not qualified.  

In fact, no MAN, politician or judge, should be allowed to control a woman's choice of what she wants to do with her own body.

Does anyone else think this has gone too far?  

Until the government passes laws that control what a man can do with his reproductive organs, they have no right to control a woman's right to choose what happens to hers.

Men, in a majority vote on the Supreme Court, decided that settled law of more than 50 years could be overturned.  Men placed on the court by a man with no moral compass.  Now we have two sets of standards regarding women's right to choose, depending on what party controls your state government.  The red right states that wants to ban all abortion regardless, and the blue left states that wants to allow the woman the right to choose and believe that decision is between the woman, her physician and her god.  

I subscribe to the latter and find the attitudes of the right highly offensive. 

Now is the time to vote for candidates who support women's rights, equal rights for all.  Send a message to Richmond and Washington in 2024.

  

Friday, November 17, 2023

Requiem for a Little Newspaper Giant!

 It is impossible to state what a devastation loss the closing of the News & Record will be to Halifax County.   To have two newspapers in such a small market is almost unheard of and with the rise of digital media, it saddens but does not shock me to see one close.

While my desire would have been to see the right-wing, poorly written, always bad news, Gazette-Virginian be the one to go, I guess it only stands to reason that the red paper would survive in a red county.

There has never been two small community papers so different in their content and style.  The News & Record always featured the positive news and the facts, while the G-V peddled bad news, often outright lies in it editorial and letters sections, and published arrest columns, and real estate transfer as if it was news.  

Tom McLaughlin is a editorial genius and could have made a mark in journalism anywhere in the country, but chose to come home after college.  He is one of only two professional journalist in Halifax County, the other being Mike Doan.  The G-V has no relevant editorial commentary at all unless you count the personal story telling of Ms. Elliott as editorials.

I subscribed to both papers always.  I read the News & Record for the facts, good news, and editorial quality.  I read the G-V to keep up with the conspiracy theorist crazies like Dan Shaw and Jeff Oaks, letters that most paper wouldn't publish.  

I'm glad that Tom will have a break to recharge and move on to bigger things while continuing the sister paper.  The loss of his powerful voice for the Democrats and liberal thinkers in Halifax County will hurt our cause, but will not stop us from pushing for better representation in Halifax, Richmond, and Washington.



Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Going To Heaven!

Just recently there was a statement made that only through Jesus Christ can you go to heaven.

While this may be a belief of the Christian faith, what about all the others religions out there?  Certainly many of the roughly 4,000 religions throughout the world don't believe there is a heaven.

In reality, many religions believe in heaven.
  • To the Abrahamic faiths, heaven is the afterlife realm where good actions are rewarded for eternity. These faiths include Christianity, Islam, and some schools of Judaism, as well as Zoroastrianism.
  • Buddhism: Buddhists believe in reincarnation with heaven the wait point until reincarnation occurs..
  • Shinto: Ame (heaven) is a lofty, sacred world, the home of the amatsukami or Heavenly Gods.
  • Hinduism: Svarga is the plane between mortals and heaven.
  • Jainism: Jainism offers an elaborate cosmology, including heavenly beings/devas.
In some religions, heaven is the final destination for those who have lived a good life. In others, it is a temporary home between rebirths. In still others, heaven is a state of being that people can aspire to experience during this life.
I believe that every person is allowed to believe in their God, whoever it may be, and follow the teaching of their God to their place of sanctuary at the end of their life.  None of them are wrong, just different.  
In the words of the great British comedian Dave Allen, "My your God go with You".

Monday, November 13, 2023

Events in Halifax County, VA Facebook Page!

Apparently this page is someone's idea of a joke.  This Facebook page has nothing to do with Events in Halifax County, VA.  It does have a lot of junk posted on it that borders on the absurd.

There are also scams and lies within it posts, and lots of crazy and stupid stuff from everywhere except Halifax County, VA.  

According to the page, it has 10,400 members and the admin person, Nitty Wilson, works at Q & N Imports in Union City, NJ, and has never posted anything to this page.

Not sure I'd respond to or post anything to the page in case I'm being used for some nefarious purpose.

Monday, August 30, 2021

Elections and The Elected

I'm no political scientist, political expert, nor even a political junkie.  Well, maybe a little bit of a political junkie.  I'm however, an observer that reads the tea leaves in this cup called America, and I saw a future riddled with division and incivility if the GOP won House seats in the midterm elections.

Extremists did gain seats with support from Trump empowered voters.  Money and the influence of money was also the winner.  I had hoped it would again become "We the People", but instead it brought a few new extremist Republicans to join those already clouding Washington.  Instead of new life and new faces in politics, we got more division and more lies, and more loud mouth right-wing extremist that have only one goal, to oppose everything that needs to be done for the country in the name of the "party" instead of the country.

James Madison said, "The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."  This quote is on the wall of the Madison building of The Library of Congress.

There are some human hands wielding the power in Halifax, Richmond, and Washington that are abusing that power, in some cases by action and in some cases, by inaction.

Too few voters are involved in politics and in many cases too few people care about the outcome of elections.  Many voters think their votes don't count because politicians don't listen.  Well, it's true that most politicians don't listen, I've spoken to enough of them to know.  But elected officials will listen when their election or reelection is threatened.

In the 2023 elections, the people spoke in Virginia and Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  Now we move forward into the crazy cycle of political noise leading up to the 2024 General Election. 

Thankfully, Virginia voters saw through the smoke and mirrors of the Youngkin movement and gave us a legislature led by Democrats.

My observation is that the trend in this election in Virginia will continue into the 2024 cycle and the GOP has woulded itself so many time in the foot that the Grand Old Party as we knew it will die a slow death at the hands of itself.

This 2023 election like every year, many politicians run unopposed.  This is wrong.  No politician should be so smug, be thought too powerful, that no one will run against them.  It takes a lot of work and a lot of money to run for any office, but until "we the people" stop complaining and either run for office and vote them out, we are doomed to repeat history. 

Local Supervisors will tell you they are not politicians.  Wrong!  If one runs for elected office, they become a politician by default.  They can disavow it all they want, but they make political decisions and impose political power over their constituents, including the ones that didn't vote for them.

We saw in this election, where big money from outside of the state sought to sway voters, that local politics are important.  In fact, all politics are local.  

Truly, many elected officials forget that they represent ALL of the people in their district or state, not just the majority, sometimes razor thin, that put them in office.  We certainly see that here in the 5th Congressional District where the default GOP extremist Congressman represents no one but himself and Trump.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Opening Shots!

As I relaunch my blog originally started over 10 years ago, I wanted to throw open the doors, so to speak, to discussion on any number of topics that are prevalent in our world today.  I'll be talking about a little of everything, from local, state, national, and world issues.  

My objective is to create a dialogue that will be informative, thought provoking, open, and often controversial.  

Changing the minds of people is hard to do and while that's not my goal, if I succeed in helping others to understand another prospective, the I will have done my part to end the lies, divisiveness, and mistrust that is pervasive in the dialogue we hear, read, and see in all forms of media.

I deal in facts. not alternative facts.  I deal in truth, not lies.  I deal in reality, not altered reality. 

If you want to join in and create a meaningful and factual dialogue, have at it.  If you plan to rant and rave, hurl insults, and ignore the rules of my blog, then expect to be ignored or blocked. 

I am Mighty Dan, so let's talk.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Evangelical Hypocrisy!

Somehow, sitting on both side of the fence must be painful.  In 2020, the local paper carried an article from an evangelical minister that condones the actions of Mr. Trump because he appointed conservative judges in the belief they will overturn Roe v Wade, and that building a wall would stop human trafficking.  Forget about all of the abominable things done by Mr. Trump.  Those don't matter to these people and their "flocks".  Mr. Trump lost the election, despite his claims, but his Supreme Court appointees managed to overturn settled law.

I, as a Christian, will never understand this hypocrisy in politics.  Praying for Mr. Trump while supporting his wrong headed policies is not christian.  It is enabled him to virtually destroy the office of the President and now three years after losing, he's still driving the GOP over the cliff.

How can you profess to be a Christian and believe the racist, misogynist rants of a deranged man?

As you might have guessed, I am pro-choice. I believe it is a woman's right to choose what happens to her body.  That doesn't make me a non-Christian.  I believe that Roe v Wade should never have been overturned, moreover I never thought it would until Mr. Trump appointed three ultra-conservative judges to the bench.

I could list all the reason why Mr. Trump is unfit to be President again, but it would take more words than I can afford to spend on someone who doesn't deserve it.

Evangelicals and Conservatives have every right to their opinion, but they must never be allowed to shove those opinions down anyone's throat, and that is what the extreme right is trying to do everyday.  When these people gets all their news and alternative facts from social media and Fox Entertainment, they are not interested in the truth, just the lies.

Changing laws will not stop abortion, just drive it underground as it was in the past, and building a wall will not stop human trafficking, just create more suffering for those being trafficked.

It is time to stop using religion and conservatism as a hammer to solve the world's problems when tolerance, compassion, compromise, understanding, sympathy, and love is the only solution.