Total Pageviews

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Best Wishes For the Season!

  Don't really have a whole lot to say here. I hope that everyone is enjoying their Christmas with friends and family.
  It is really not a day for politics. So I won't go there. While we are lucky enough to be celebrating with loved ones, we know that there are many who are not. We know that there are people in the northeast still recovering from a devastating hurricane. We know that there are 27 families in Connecticut whose Christmas season will never be the same. We keep those folks in our thoughts and prayers.
  We know that there are plenty of people who are volunteering  be away from their families today. Police, Firefighters, and EMT's who for today, is another workday. We thank them for the sacrifice of their holiday today to help to keep us safe, and to be there just in case we need them to be.
  Most of all, we thank the brave men and women of the United States Military. We thank them for offering to be thousands of miles from home, in many cases, in places that are hostile to American Soldiers. We thank them for the sacrifice they make everyday to keep America the beacon of freedom and liberty that she has been for 236 years.
  As a Wiccan, I am not an expert on the "reason for the season". But I will suggest that those of you who are, do remember the real reason for your faith today. I guess I can say in kind of a general way, that even if Christmas is not your holiday, we can all take some lessons from it. Celebrate all of the people you love today. Celebrate all of the blessings you have received this year. Celebrate all of the possibility that the new year brings. That makes Christmas everyone's holiday, regardless of your faith.
  That said. Merry Christmas From The Conservative Cauldron! 

Friday, December 14, 2012

Searching For Answers

This has been such a ghastly day. I have thought all day about what I would say tonight. Like everyone else, it is hard to know where to begin. Maybe the most logical place in a totally illogical scenario would be to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of this senseless tragedy in Newtown Connecticut. I am not a parent, but I can only imagine the horror and unspeakable pain of sending your kindergarten age child to school, and then they never come home.
  By all accounts, Newtown is a place where people intentionally move to to raise their kids. It is quiet, it has good schools, and practically no crime. Just a sleepy New England town. Until today.
I thought about the first responders to this nightmare. Police, Paramedics, people who are themselves parents. I thought of the people who are tonight, still at the crime scene processing it, and doing what needs to be done to ensure a proper and thorough investigation. Those people, even the most hardened among them, will never be the same. They are doing an unimaginable job.
  I thought about the world in which we now live. I have often seen previews of the "Doomsday Preppers" reality show. People who prepare for what they believe is an impending end to the world. I have to admit, making fun of them is sometimes very easy to do. But I don't know. Something is very wrong. The very religious would tell you it is because we no longer believe in or fear God, or Goddess. Some would tell you that it is a society where, the bad guys can get a gun far easier than the good guys. Still others may say that the problem is our culture, which is slowly sliding into a bottomless pit of parentless children, violent video games, and an endless parade of reality TV shows that depict people with little or no moral compass.
  The one question that kept going through my mind today was, are people so starved for their 15 minutes of fame, or infamy, it doesn't seem like it matters which one they achieve, that they will literally do anything for it? Even murder 5 year olds?
  We have all sat down somewhere today and tried to come up with an answer to this, and when none will come to us it just frustrates us and makes us mad. Five year olds, at this time of year should be preoccupied with Santa Claus, not being buried.
  For those of you who are parents, hug your children tonight and tell them you love them. For those of you who are not parents, hug your friends and family and tell them you love them. It all goes to the same place.
   May The Goddess wrap the victims and their families in her loving arms and and comfort them at this horrible time.       

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Art of Compromise

  I heard a local sportscaster the other night talking about the NHL lockout. As the newscast was coming to a close, one of the anchors remarked, "sounds like what's going on on Capitol Hill." The more I thought about it, it kind of does. Silliness comes in all forms, and these two bodies are no exception. Granted, one of these situations is way more serious than the other, but each one contains elements of the ridiculous.
  Both of these situations are, bottom line, about money. And, they are both starting to make the eyes of interested parties on both subjects start to glaze over. The NHL owners will tell you that they only have the players and the fans best interests at heart. The President and Speaker Boehner will tell you that they only want what is best for the American people.
  Bull cookies. The President is trying to screw the Republicans, and Boehner is trying to screw the Democrats. The NHL owners want the most out of the players for the least amount of money. The players want a little more of the revenue pie.
  Neither side trusts the other to play fair. Some Republicans would take a tumble over the fiscal cliff so that Democrats can own the whole mess. The President and Democrats know that if December 31 comes and goes with no agreement, they, and the Public Relations arm of the Democratic Party, also known as the mainstream media, can scream from the rooftops that it is all the fault of the Republicans. They just want to protect their rich friends.
  If you go on any number of sports websites, the threat of a boycott by hockey fans, namely season ticket holders is being talked about. It seems as though fans don't trust players or owners to solve the impasse.
  The NHL estimates that it is losing 18-20 million dollars a day, and the federal government is borrowing 46 cents for every dollar it spends. Neither of these factoids seems like sound fiscal policy. Of course, the first priority must be that Washington D.C. comes to some kind of compromise, without "compromise" meaning that Republicans cave into every Democrat demand.
  If NHL owners and players come to an agreement soon after a possible Congressional agreement, could that mean that Congress lead by some sort of example?
  Silliness comes in many forms.    

Monday, December 3, 2012

There's Something About Bob

 Well, we all knew it was coming... Yeah Bob, we knew it was coming, just not from you, and just not in the middle of a football game for the love of Pete. By now, the whole world has heard NBC sportscaster Bob Costas go on his now infamous anti-gun rant. Not being a football fan, I was not watching, but I can only imagine, sitting on my couch, chilled out for the evening, drink in hand, maybe a snack or two, and all of a sudden...what? Where the hell did that come from?!
  I don't know much about Bob Costas. Always liked him well enough. I think he has an awesome baseball mind, a walking encyclopedia of baseball knowledge. But now we all know something else about Bob, or at least we can pretty well surmise, that Bob is a liberal.
 In the grand scheme of things, that's OK. Bob is an American citizen, and he is free to be as big of a raging liberal as he wants. But Bob has one giant advantage over the rest of America. He can go on TV at halftime, and tell the world what he thinks, about anything, and if you want to watch football, you either get up to get the new bag of chips, or you suffer through whatever Bob has on his mind.
  What happened in Kansas City is horrible, tragic, sad, all of the above. Linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girl friend, and the mother of his 3 month old daughter, Kassandra Perkins, then drove to the Kansas City Chiefs practice facility, and then shot himself in front of two of his coaches. It has been widely reported that Belcher was having trouble with alcohol and pain killers, and was dealing with several football related injuries. Costas quoted from a column written by Jason Whitlock, who argued that if he had not had access to a firearm, both Belcher and Perkins would be alive today.
  It is such a flimsy argument, a breath of air can easily deflate it. Thousands of people die in automobile accidents every year, should we ban cars? We have heard this rebuttal all day. But the questions must be raised, now that Bob has brought this front and center. First of all, Jovan Belcher was a linebacker for the NFL. He weighed 250 pounds. If he wanted to kill Kassandra Perkins with his bare hands, he was probably more than capable of doing so. Secondly, why do the American cities with the most stringent gun laws have the highest crime rates? Has Bob been to Chicago or Washington DC lately? Why, in all of the places where conceal and carry is permitted, has the crime rate gone down? All of these statistics can be easily looked up and proven right. Why do the loudest voices against guns and gun ownership come from people who have no knowledge of either one?
  The list of questions goes on and on, but the most important point here is that the right to keep and bear arms is a God given Constitutional right. But there are plenty of people who would like for this right to be eliminated. With any luck though, as long as the number of law-abiding, gun owning Americans outnumber the criminals who, I hate to break it to Bob and Jason, and all their friends, don't really give a rat's rear end about gun laws, or any laws for that matter, that right will be maintained and protected. Just a quick aside, Jason Whitlock recently compared the NRA to the KKK. As a card carrying member of the National Rifle Association myself, I find that highly offensive. In the NRA's monthly publication, there is column called "The Armed Citizen". It relates stories of regular Americans from all over, of how they defended themselves, and their homes and businesses against armed intruders, sometimes killing them, but quite possibly saving their own lives, and the lives of their families.
  All of our hearts go out to Jovan Belcher's and Kassandra Perkin's families. A little girl just three months old will never know her parents. Bob Costas is absolutely entitled to his opinion. What he is not entitled to is lecturing the rest of us about gun control.
  Save it for the Sports desk Bob.