Celebrating The Harvests

  On Wednesday of this week, Wiccans will celebrate Lammas, or Lughnasadh. It is the first of three harvest festivals on the Pagan calendar. The second being the Autumnal Equinox, or Mabon, and the third is Halloween, or Samhain (pronounced Sow-en). Lammas marks the peak of the Earth's bounty, be it fruits, vegetables, grains,etc., and the blessings of the Goddess and God for that bounty.
  But in modern times, when the majority of people do not live in agricultural societies, and aside from the harvest of your own personal gardens (tomatoes, petunias, etc), how can we possibly celebrate a harvest?
  Harvests come in many different forms. The harvest of your own daily hard work, the harvest of a happy, healthy family and home, the harvest of your own personal accomplishments. Through your own cultivation and attention to those things, they have grown and thrived. The harvest of your thoughts and ideas. What do you achieve when you nourish them? With proper care, they have the possibility to become reality, and maybe make the world a better place.
  Like an agricultural harvest, our own personal harvests don't always go as planned. We also have our seasons of flood and drought. Perhaps the harvest is a lot smaller than we thought it was going to be. Sometimes we have a back-up plan for those bad harvests, sometimes not. And we all know that sometimes it takes everything in us to bring that small harvest in. But man do we feel good when we do!

  During this week of celebration of the first harvest, which harvests are you celebrating? Personal? Professional? Big or small? Is there something you wish to harvest? A project? A completion of something or an idea? The possibilities are endless! Those harvests are all there. Just look hard enough and you will find them. Help your family and friends bring in and celebrate their harvests as well. You will be better for it.
  May the Goddess and God of the Harvest bless all of your harvests. In whatever form they come in.     

The Left: Playing Chicken Again

  You might find yourself scratching your head when you read that a Wiccan would jump to the defense of devout Christians, but that is exactly what you will read here. In light of news that Chick Fil-A, one of the nation's largest fast food chains, has given money to groups that oppose Gay marriage, a vicious smear campaign on various websites, and on Facebook and Twitter has erupted, driven largely by the ever-so-tolerant Left.
  But why would we expect anything else? Those shining examples of open-mindedness have already displayed their tolerance of people like Black Conservatives, and well, Conservatives in general. Especially when we have the utter gall to think freely for ourselves, and then, have even more nerve to (gasp!), say it out loud!

  We have talked a lot about business owners lately. About the fact that they are rich and therefore should "pay their fair share" of taxes. About the fact that they really didn't build that business by themselves, the government helped of course. And now, they cannot contribute their own earnings to groups and causes they believe in, and if they happen to be Christians, have the audacity (Liberals love that word don't they), to live their lives and run their businesses accordingly. For the Left, there is just one answer to that. Ban it. Shut it down. Run  them out of town, or don't even allow them in town, like Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and Chicago's own pillar of piety, Rahm Emanuel, who said that "Chick Fil-A values are not Chicago values." Would that be the you-better-be-armed-when-you-go-to-Chicago values, or the drive-by shooting values?
  One thing to know about  Wiccans, religious discrimination hits very close to home for us, usually because it has happened to us. So we take it seriously. Why do people seem to forget that this country was founded by people fleeing religious persecution? If you don't agree with some one's religious beliefs, don't frequent their establishment. It is very simple.
  But Liberals, in their on going attempt to run every one's lives, because they better than the rest of us unwashed slobs, find it perfectly o.k to tell Chick Fil-A how to run their business, and if they don't comply, well, we will make them comply. Because everyone knows that a good smear campaign always makes you want to do things their way right?
  So a big thumbs up to Chick Fil-A. For not backing down. For not knuckling under to a bunch of hippie lefties who are nothing more than bullies in a schoolyard. Usually, when you stand up to the bullies, they back down, and you find out they really are just chicken.  
        

Terror In Colorado

  The nation was left in shock on Friday when early that morning, at a midnight showing of the new "Batman" movie, "The Dark Knight Rises", a man clad in body armor and wielding a semi-automatic weapon and a rifle burst into the emergency entrance of a theatre in Aurora, Colorado and made his way up the center aisle, shooting randomly, and at anyone who tried to escape the carnage. When it was over, 12 were dead, and over 70 people wounded.
  There are so many questions, especially about the suspect, 24-year old James Holmes. Today, Aurora Police spent the day attempting to enter Holmes's apartment, which he had left boobie-trapped and wired to kill the first person who tried to enter. It will no doubt hold the answers to so many of those questions. The first and foremost one being, why?
  There is another why. Why does it take a tragedy like this for people to ask things like, just what, exactly, has happened to us as human beings? What is lacking, or just completely not there anymore in our psyche that allows this to happen? How does a seemingly normal human being, certainly with people around him that love him deteriorate to this? The sad and scary part is that there are more and more people to ask that of. Take the rash of violence in Chicago right now. This is not a political thing, a Republican or Democrat thing, a Conservative or Liberal thing, or a black and white thing. It is a human thing. How did we become just a group of targets?
  We seem to be in dire need of some sort of societal intervention. We have to stop being afraid to call things what they are for fear someone will be offended. Quite frankly, fear of being offended is getting people killed.
  As usual, the electronic lynch mob, otherwise known as the mainstream media, were pretty sure, even before the shooter was out of the theatre, that this was all the fault of Conservatives, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the list goes merrily on. ABC's Good Morning America even went as far as going on the Colorado Tea Party website and finding a James Holmes, and promptly went on to inform the public that this may be the guy. Never mind the fact that 50-something Jim Holmes had recently joined the Tea Party group, and now had to disconnect his phone, all because of the "public service" done on behalf of ABC News. I can't speak for all Conservatives of course, but I am getting damn sick and tired of having to defend myself, and others of like mind to the rest of the world every time some nut job with a gun decides to kill innocent people, and having those "journalists" at ABC, CBS, NBC, oh hell, everybody knows who they are, try to pin it on us simply because we have a different opinion! Newsflash to inane, incompetent, Manhattan living, limo riding, never been west of DC, Harvard, Columbia boobs who pass themselves off as "serious journalists", not being exactly like you does NOT make us DANGEROUS! Could you all climb out of the backside of Barack Obama just long enough to maybe, just for one minute even, just be Americans? Americans who would like to comfort the grieving and help the survivors of this nightmare? Would it be too much to ask of you to just be compassionate? To simply help your fellow human beings?
  I promise, you will have plenty of time later to blame as many of us as you can fit in one of your Sunday morning snoozer shows.
  Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, the survivors, and the community of Aurora. May the Goddess lift you into her arms and comfort all of you in this difficult time.                          

If I Build It, Uncle Sam Will Come

  We already know that Barack Obama is the most liberal President ever elected to the office. Conservatives have always believed that he has some downright Marxist tendencies as well. But last Friday, in a speech in Roanoke, Virginia, the President just may have let the cat out of the bag.
  Obama told the crowd, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that! Somebody else made that happen!" I am guessing that is one hell of a newsflash for all of the small business owners in America. You know, only the people who create three quarters of the jobs in this country.
  For someone who has invested time, more hours of hard work than they care to mention, money, sometimes out of your own pocket to pay employees when you are just starting out, and any other personal resources to get that business off the ground, the fact that your President is telling you that you did not build that business can only be making smoke come off the top of your head.
  But wait a minute. There was one thing missing from what will surely be known among Conservatives as "the Roanoke speech". There was no teleprompter.
  Nope. Nowhere to be found. So what does this tell us? A whole lot. It tells us of the contempt and disdain that Barack Obama has for anyone who dismisses the almighty hand of government to do it on their own. It tells us that Barack Obama looks down his nose at the very principles this country was founded upon. Of hard work, and being rewarded for that hard work with success because of sacrifices you were willing to make. It tells us what he thinks of countless generations of LEGAL immigrants who sometimes risked their very lives for a chance at the American dream. It tells us that he has no clue how the American economy works. That when you shove mountains of government regulation, taxation, and bureaucracy out of the way, those small businesses are the very core of the economic engine that runs America. It tells us that Barack Obama believes that government, not people, is what makes America go 'round. Without the comfort zone of the teleprompter, we know what Barack Obama truly believes.

  But this is an election year. it is probably a safe bet that he won't let that happen again any time soon.     

Robyn Hamlin's Dirty Work

  Politics is sometimes a complex business. Candidates can and will do whatever they need to in order to get a vote. They can also do and say whatever they need to say, even if it means taking a little "poetic license" with the truth.
 Take Missouri's First Congressional District Republican Primary race. The race is a repeat of 2010 between sometime Republican, sometime Libertarian Robyn Hamlin and Martin Baker.
  Recently, The League of Women Voters offered to sponsor a debate between Hamlin and Baker. Hamlin was given 10 days to respond to the offer. After the 10 day window had expired, Hamlin was approached again for a response to the debate challenge. Her response was that she did not want to debate Baker because she wanted to "save him any possible embarrassment" that some personal legal issues concerning child support and a court case with a former landlord would become debate topics.
 Baker has never been anything but open and honest about both of these issues. Baker's ex-wife reports nothing but prompt and full payment of child support, says that he is a loving and supportive father, and she fully supports his Congressional run. The court case to legally end a lease agreement is one that Baker has never shied away from discussing.

 So, is this a question of integrity and character? You bet it is. Most Americans are no doubt of the opinion that hopefully, we learned a valuable lesson about Politicians and character, or the lack of it, through the antics of Bill Clinton. Perhaps, for Robyn Hamlin, it is a question of confidence in her own ability to go head to head with her opponent to debate the issues that are important to the people of Missouri's First Congressional District. That is something Hamlin will have to deal with on her own time. Does she really think that any conflict that Martin Baker may or may not have with his ex-wife is more important than the fact this resident of the First Congressional District, every day, drives past a ghost town that used to be Northwest Plaza? One of the largest malls in the state, with close to 100 stores at it's peak. Included in that daily trip is a drive past a large empty field that used to be the Hazelwood Ford Plant. A place that employed thousands of people, now just acres of weeds. A bit of concern over these statistics, and a sincere desire to keep it from happening again, is more likely what First Congressional District voters are concerned about. Also, take a minute and ask those voters what their chief complaints are about Washington D.C, and Politicians, and chances are a lot of those people are going to say, a lack of honesty and integrity. That they have all lost the ability to simply do what is right. Is one more politician who is willing to stoop as low as they can go for a vote, the ends justifying the means, what the people of Missouri's First Congressional District really want?
 Someone once said that the definition of character is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.
 Unfortunately for Ms. Hamlin, somebody is watching.            

July 4 Thoughts

Hope everyone is having a fun, fantastic 4 of July. Hopefully staying cool! This a special day for Americans. There are about as many ways to describe what it means to be an American as there are, well, Americans. On this day, we are all so thankful to have been born in the greatest country on the face of the Earth, and even in the most trying of times, we have no problem counting off to the world why we, as Americans are so blessed.

  236 years ago, a group of men gathered for an experiment. They came from all walks of Colonial life. Some were wealthy, some not so much. But they all shared the same dream. An independent nation, free of the shackles of the Monarchy of England, where they would govern themselves as they saw fit. They drew up a Bill of Rights and a Declaration of Independence. They declared to the world that their rights did not come from government, but from their Creator. They quite willingly signed their names to documents that would most certainly see them jailed, if not hung for treason if King George had his way. But they knew that it must be done, and they were willing to literally risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for this experiment. It took five years, but an army of farmers pushed back the greatest military force on the planet at that time, the British Army. Then they saw about the founding of their new nation.
  America has not always been a perfect nation. We have ugly scars of the past to show for that. But in their wisdom, and just plain genius, the Founders of the United States knew that we were human, and humans tend to make mistakes. So they made sure that there were mechanisms in place to correct those mistakes and that America would be a better, stronger place for it.
  America has always been a beacon of freedom and liberty for all those around the world who seek a better life for themselves and their children. In the early part of the 20th century, people came to the United States with just what they could carry with them. They came with no money, not knowing the language, but with a willingness to work hard, and the burning desire to just be Americans.
  Americans will be faced with tough choices in the next couple of months. We will debate, discuss, argue, and just plain yell at each other. But because of the people who have come before us, and sacrificed all that they have, and possibly their lives, we are able to do just that. We are able to do those things because of the freedom and liberty that we continue to fight for every day. Someone said on the radio the other day that he had to continue to fight "because there is no place else to go."
 Truer words were never spoken.             

Just One More Question...

  The hits just keep coming for Barack Obama and his merry band of henchmen. The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in both civil and criminal contempt of Congress for his refusal to turn over key documents in the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.
  Holder's boss, President Obama, if you remember, was going to have the "most transparent" administration ever. He failed to tell us when exactly that would be happening.
  Refusing to turn over documents in this case is just the latest in a string of questionable behaviors by Holder. By examining his track record, it seems like there should be just one more question asked of Attorney General Holder. Are you dragging your heels in this case because Brian Terry was white? Before everyone gets their panites in a bunch, let's look at Mr. Holder's history.
  On Election Day, 2008, two Black Panthers stood in front of a polling place in Philadelphia, smaking nightsticks in their hands, daring white voters to come in and vote. J. Christian Adams, an attorney in the Voting Rights section of the Department of Justice, claims in his book, "Injustice: Exposing The Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department", that he was directed by higher ups in the department to dismiss the case. In 2010, in one of the most brazen incidents of racial discrimination, in Mississippi was the case of Ike Brown. Brown, an African-American, was the Democrat Party Chairman in Noxubee County. Brown, for years, routinely practiced outrageous forms of discrimination by canceling ballots cast by white voters, and even threatening 174 white voters with not letting them vote if they challenged him. Brown was stripped of any power to supervise any election activity until 2012. Mississippi is one of a handful of states where the Department of Justice must oversee any voting law changes. It appears as though the Department of Justice has never done any real follow up on Mr. Brown's case as well. Adams also says that any request for information by right-leaning groups through the Freedom Of Information Act is held up for months. But if you are NPR, or the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, chances are you will have what you need in a matter of days, if not the same day.

  So Eric Holder does, in fact, have an abysmal history when it comes to race. A man gave his life in the defense of this country. It does not matter if he is purple, his family has earned some answers as to what happened, and his memory does not need to be trampled on by ethnic Congressional Caucuses walking out on the contempt vote.
  There are a number of examples in Christian Adams book that tells of the pervasive racial double standard that is alive and well at Obama's Department of Justice. But the bottom line is this. Has this case been handled the way it has by an African-American Attorney General, and quite possibly an African-American President, all because the victim is white? Is there evidence of that in the documents being withheld? The video above of Sean Hannity's interview with Adams may hold the answer.
It's time we knew.