Me
Rion and family: February Update
The last time we talked about my grandson’s progress was December 1. For those who don’t know, four and a half months ago, my grandson was hospitalized with an unknown illness that was later determined to be viral meningitis caused by the enterovirus. He spent weeks in the intensive care unit. There was a time when I was unsure that he would survive, although I would never have told my daughter that.
I posted about his illness on this blog, and many of you told me that you were praying for him. Well, it seems that those helpful thoughts were successful, because he is doing better than I had hoped. All of the things that he used to be able to do, the things we all take for granted, he has had to learn all over again. He had to be toilet trained all over again. Walking, reading, writing, speaking, feeding himself, all of it had to be learned again.
He now walks and runs nearly like a normal, six year old boy. and is no longer in a wheelchair, although he does occasionally wear leg braces. He relies on the braces less and less as time goes on. He even returned to ice skates two weeks ago. One of his favorite things to do was play youth league hockey. He still isn’t back to that, but he is pushing himself.
He still doesn’t have the fine motor control he had, but he can write (sloppily), His speech is still stilted and somewhat robotic, but also improving. If you want to read his entire story as posted on this blog, click here.
The care that he received was second to none. My daughter’s boyfriend works at a different hospital in that hospital chain, and the nursing director of his hospital personally made the drive to the hospital where his stepson (my grandson) was, so that he could visit and deliver gifts that included gift cards, food, cash, and stuffed animals. The entire staff of the hospital where he works was wonderful. They offered to care for the other kids, cooked meals for the family, and even came over and cleaned the house. What large companies do that anymore?
Education
Woke College
The Florida legislature is looking at a bill that would eliminate majors in useless subjects like Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, or Intersectionality at all state funded universities and colleges. The left is losing their shit and calling it a ban that threatens academic freedom. Bullshit. It isn’t a ban. If you want to spend five figures on a major like Women’s Studies, knowing that you will never get a job as a result of that degree, you can do so. Just not at a taxpayer funded college.
Another part of the same bill changes how universities will be able to hire their professors. In the future, professors would be recommended for hiring by the college President, but the board of trustees would have the final say in hirings and firings. The bill would also allow a professor’s tenure to be revoked. The bill explicitly bans state colleges or universities from using woke policies like diversity, equity, and inclusion statements, Critical Race Theory rhetoric, or other forms of political identity filters as part of the hiring process, including as part of applications for employment, promotion and tenure, conditions of employment, or reviewing qualifications for employment.
In other words, there will be accountability, and college professorship will no longer be a liberal jobs program and professors will not be eliminated for failure to be woke enough.
Additionally, the bill bans use of university resources to “promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities…that espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or Critical Race Theory rhetoric,” whether directly or through grants, contracts, or service agreements. Done are the days when taxpayer money can be used to support liberal causes.
The times, they are a changin’
Anti American left
The Miami Herald Supports Child Pornographers
The title from the Miami Herald reads:
He was homeless and mentally ill. A judge sentenced him to 150 years. Is that justice?
The article tells a story about a man who they allege is mentally ill and was caught in possession of child pornography after he sat in public with his computer and was showing that porn to multiple passers-by.
In 2016, he walked into a Sweetwater Best Buy and snatched a laptop and other merchandise. When employees confronted him, he pulled out his own laptop, declaring, ”Look, I have child pornography!” He began publicly showing his computer screen, lying down between two sets of sliding doors and perusing the illegal images as customers walked by.
Prosecutors offered him a plea deal, where he would plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and receive three years. He refused that deal.
So they pressed on with 30 counts of possession, that being what was found on his computer. Throughout the trial, the defendant refused to talk to his attorneys or participate in his own defense. He also refused to undergo mental health evaluations.
So he rolled the dice, went to trial, and the judge gave him the maximum sentence for each of the 30 counts. The total was for 150 years.
After the conviction, after all appeals have been exhausted, now this criminal and his attorneys begin screaming that NOW he has submitted to a psychological exam, and the psychologist claims that he is “unlikely to reoffend.” Why is that? Have his psychological problems been cured? Why wait until after sentence has been passed? Sounds to me like the reactions of a logical mind that is now hoping for a second bite at the apple and using his schizophrenia as an excuse. You don’t get a “do over” simply because you gambled and lost.
Now the Herald whips out the race card. They claim that in a perfect world, Stephens would’ve received treatment for his mental illness. He would have never become homeless or walked into that Best Buy. No, in a perfect world, those children would never have been victimized, and in a perfect world, the defendant in this case wouldn’t have victimized them a second time by having photos of the crime, and victimized yet a third time by him displaying photos of their victimization to the public.
It’s hard not to wonder what Stephens’ fate would have been were he not homeless, mentally ill; if his family had been in court and not thousands of miles away in Michigan, where they didn’t even know that he had been arrested; if Stephens weren’t Black, factors that historically have put defendants at a disadvantage.
What the Herald fails to mention is that, after moving to Miami in 2015, he racked up a list of criminal convictions in Miami Dade – 8 of them for 2015 and 2016, everything from trespassing, to petit theft, and even felony battery. Now this. The man moved to Miami and became a one man crime wave. Through these 8 cases, his mental issues weren’t used as a defense by his attorneys once. Not once.
What next? Rape a child? Kill someone? At least in prison, society is protected from this menace. I am willing to be that this behavior didn’t just begin when he came to Miami. The Herald engages in typical liberal hand-wringing over this criminal’s need for psychological help, while ignoring the child victims of his crime. They merely wave away possession of child pornography by saying “Stephens wasn’t accused of producing or distributing the pornographic material.” which is false, because he was sitting there in the middle of the mall, showing the photographs to passers by. That is, in fact, distribution.
I am sick and tired of the left yammering on endlessly about the rights of criminals while ignoring the rights of the victims of their crimes. However, if my child were one of his victims, I would be sorely tempted to plea for his release so I could mete out the vengeance that his crimes are screaming for.
I am willing to bet that, should that happen, the Herald wouldn’t be running stories to celebrate my cause.
Uncategorized
Your Family was the Reason for the Next One
Prince Harry says that he doesn’t understand the First Amendment and thinks it is “bonkers.” See, no one should be allowed to bad mouth him because he is rich, or royalty, or something. If he doesn’t like that Amendment, wait until he finds out that his 6x great grandfather (and also his 5x great grandfather, due to Royal inbreeding) was the reason for the next Amendment and what that Amendment means.
Government
Useless
The UN passed a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw all troops from Ukraine. Such a resolution is meaningless without troops to enforce it. Of course that means the US. Is this the excuse Biden will use to get us into a war? What will China do?
The UN is useless.
Antigun
Social Justice
Self described “social justice warrior” Monique Worrell beat “law and order” candidate Jose Torroella in 2020 to become the prosecutor for the 9th judicial district of Florida. She ran on the following platform:
Monique Worrell has pledged to:
- Implement policies to hold police officers accountable for misconduct
- End the use of cash bail
- Expand programs to divert children and adults away from jail
- Partner with community programs to address mental health and substance abuse issues
The voters of Orange and Osceola counties overwhelmingly voted for her. In so doing, they sided with the “Defund” movement and elected someone who is soft on crime. The woman she replaced was removed from office by the Governor for the exact same policies.
The shooter in this case was pulled over by OPD with three of his friends less than a year ago. They had drugs and ski masks in the car. They had thrown at least one firearm out of the window before stopping. If the prosecutor had done her job instead of campaigning for “soft on crime” social justice, those people wouldn’t have been shot.
So, I ask the voters there: Where is the social justice in a known gang member with multiple violent felonies on his record being able to walk the streets and kill children and news reporters? Yeah. Dead women. Dead reporters. Dead kids. That’s the justice you voted for. You are getting what you wanted.
Enjoy.
But instead, as I predicted, you are blaming law abiding firearms owners. Screw you. Keep voting for this shit. Keep watching animals murder your women, your children, and each other. I don’t care. This is what you wanted, and you have it.
Enjoy.
Pine Hills
Crime Hills Strikes Again
One of Orlando’s worst neighborhoods, Pine Hills, aka Crime Hills, has seen yet another shooting. A woman was found shot to death at 11:20 a.m., then the killer returned to the scene at 4 p.m., shooting and killing a reporter and wounding his cameraman who were out covering the story. Not done yet, he entered a nearby home and shot a 20 year old woman and her 9 year old child. Five victims, three of them black. Where is black lives matter and all of the race hustlers to condemn this? Let’s take a look at the killer:
Never mind. No one will care, as long as white people can’t be blamed. At 19 years old, he already had a lengthy criminal history, with convictions for burglary, armed robbery, grand theft, aggravated battery, and multiple gun charges. But instead, let’s blame “gun violence” so they can later blame gun owners and not the criminals who are running wild on our streets. Let’s take a look at murder rates, including white USA versus black USA.
I think I see the problem, and it isn’t guns. Look deeper into the story- two of his victims were a 20 year old mother and her 9 year old child. Can things get more obvious?
Communism
I have to work and save? Capitalism sucks!
As if more evidence were needed that we are seeing an entire generation that doesn’t understand money, we have young people claiming that them having the housing that they want at the price that they feel like paying. Yep, housing is a human right, but landlords making a profit is a luxury. Those are the exact terms used in this story.
Granted, the above story is from Australia, but the sentiments are identical to those here in the US, as evidenced by posts seen on social media where the latest generation vents that landlords should lose money because they are rich. They claim “they don’t own the properties at all most of the time, they just keep taking out equity from the last place and end up with 7 mortgages that need consistent renters.” Yes, that is how investing works. It’s called leveraging. You borrow money, invest that money, and turn a profit. The rate of return has to be higher than the cost of borrowing the money, or the investment isn’t worth making.
Proving that many legislators don’t understand economics either, the state of Connecticut is considering a law that would prohibit rent increases that are larger than the CPI plus 3%. The law would also make it illegal to evict a tenant when the lease expires. Since we all know that the CPI is complete and utter horse manure, it is easy to see where this will go. As expenses increase, they cut into profits. The landlord can’t ask the tenant to leave when the lease expires, meaning that a lease becomes a lifetime contract of involuntary servitude between the tenant and the landlord. All because housing is a “human right.”
This is nothing more than slavery disguised as human rights. They are demanding that property owners provide losers with a subsidized place to live. Communism in a nutshell.
The part that make me laugh as I realize the magical thinking here is the sentiment that “Get those houses back into the market, 70% of renters want to buy!” as if there are no houses out there for sale because landlords own them all. If renters wanted to buy, all they need is good credit, a steady job, and a grasp on managing money. They don’t have those things.
Many young people don’t grasp the way things are. They want to live in luxury without paying for it, without sacrifice, without work. They have decided that all they must do to have everything that they want is protest and vote for it. Working for what they want, being responsible with their money and saving for a down payment are all foreign concepts to them. As far as they are concerned, having to do those things means that capitalism has failed.
Anti American left
ASVAB Exposes Education Failures
For those who don’t know, the entrance exam for the US military is a standardized test called the ASVAB, and is one of the best vocational aptitude tests out there. The ASVAB includes tests in 10 areas: general science (GS), arithmetic reasoning (AR), word knowledge (WK), paragraph comprehension (PC), mathematics knowledge (MK), electronics information (EI), auto information (AI), shop information (SI), mechanical comprehension (MC) and assembling objects (AO).
The test is scored as a percentile. That is, the score ranges from 1 to 99. A 60 would indicate that you scored higher than 60 percent of the people who have taken the exam. For that reason, a perfectly average person would score a 50. The score required to enlist is different for each branch of the military, with the lowest being a 30 for the Army, and the highest being a 36 for the Coast Guard. (There are waivers that allow even lower scores to qualify)
With that being said, black applicants are half as likely to reach the minimum score as any other demographic. In fact, a whopping 40% of black test takers cannot achieve a passing score on the ASVAB. The average score for blacks is 38 and for Hispanics is 44, compared to whites’ average score of 55. These scores reflect the similar racial gaps on other standardized exams.
This is more problematic than it appears at first glance, going back to my post about licensing and certification. Every applicant for the military has a high school diploma- a piece of paper issued from their school district certifying that they can read, write, and perform arithmetic, yet are dumber than two thirds of the test takers. Even worse, if you extend this to those who have dropped out of school before high school graduation, a whopping 60% of US blacks can’t pass this exam. Our education system is a waste of money that is largely accomplishing nothing but grooming children to become liberal sexual deviants.
Now there are many who will claim that this is caused by some sort of racism, using the stupid metric of “anything that results in disproportionate results for blacks is racist” instead of looking deeper into the causes. Why? Looking deeper is difficult and exposes uncomfortable realities.