Whatever happened to innocent until proved guilty? Are we deciding murder cases now by taking polls? As Trayvon Martin’s parents call for calm, debate heats up in the media itself, not about the Florida teenager’s shooting death, but about Al Sharpton’s multiple roles in the case as cable news host, racial agitator, judge and jury. A quarter of a century ago, the Reverend Al began his public career as...

After several depressing stories coming out of Afghanistan, this one certainly deserves telling and should make us feel proud. It is about Sgt. Dennis Weichel Jr., 29, a Providence, Rhode Island guardsman, who recently deployed to Afghanistan and who was serving with the 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment, 56th Troop Command, in Laghman Province, in northeast Afghanistan. While the official Pentagon news...

UPDATE: Please read the text of H.R.1940, “SEAN AND DAVID GOLDMAN INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION, PREVENTION AND RETURN ACT” here == Original Post: By the time I started writing (in February 2009) about “the unbelievably tragic—and exasperating—story of an American father’s brave fight to bring his son home, an 8-year old boy who is being held in Brazil in violation of all international norms,...

UPDATE: I will let Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and is one of the staunchest supporters for rightfully awarding the Medal of Honor to Sgt. Peralta, provide an update on this story: The fact that Paralta was denied the Medal of Honor in the first place is as much of an injustice as it is a disservice to the men and women of the Marine Corps. Now that the Navy...

UPDATE III: The same newspaper that was attacked by Senator Santorum — through one of its reporters — says this morning that “taking heed of criticism, Santorum tones down attacks.” Meet a “more subdued Santorum” here. Will his new-found mellowness be too little, too late? UPDATE II: And one more nail in the coffin: According to the WaPo, “U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), considered...

The news went viral nearly a month after the killing: a black teenager shot dead at night while wearing a hoodie. Happens all the time, right? Just one of those sad facts of contemporary life in America. Nothing to see here, folks… move on, please… please move on. But America didn’t move on. Trayvon Martin has become world-famous in death, something he never could have foreseen and never...

Between the recent case of a flight attendent who went bonkers in the sky and now an incident involving at JetBlue pilot who seemingly suffered a breakdown will the phrase “Going postal” be replaced with “Going airline“? Here’s the latest incident via CNN, which involved a pilot screaming about Iraq, Iran and Al Qaeda was wrestled to the ground by some passengers that included off...

Losing momentum, Rick Santorum is letting the public mask slip and openly showing what historian Richard Hofstadter identified half a century ago as “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” The candidate is now publicly attacking a New York Times reporter: “Stop lying” and “quit distorting our words,” calling his question “bullshit” and adding “C’mon man! What are you doing?…You...

My apologies to Andy Samberg. I few months back I wrote a quick post about my dislike of Andy Samberg’s SNL Digital Short, “Wish it Would Rain.” To convey my disdain of that particular video, I may have employed unfair hyperbole. In retrospect, calling Andy Samberg’s Wish it Would Rain, “One of the Worst Things Ever Aired on SNL” was most likely a slight exaggeration. In...

Trayvon Martin Murder: Inflammatory Rhetoric by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Others, Threaten to Take Focus Off Crucial Issues Trayvon Martin murder: Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Sanford City Commission yesterday, “the whole world is watching Sanford.” “The whole world is watching Florida today,” in his demand that they city commissioners do their part to ensure shooter George Zimmerman is arrested....

It’s something many of us animal loves have felt for years. Don’t easily give up on a sick, or ailing or older pet. There are times when you need to face reality — but you have to correctly define reality. Here’s how a blind, abandoned dog in LA got a second lease on life. And restored vision: video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Any astrologer worth her salt would tell you that there is not a lot of good that you can expect from a grand Supreme Court argument over the future of health care, held on a day when Mercury is retrograde, Saturn is retrograde, and Mars is retrograde.  And, since, like global warming, astrology is easily refuted, except by observation, allow me to make this observation on the madness of the zeitgeist. The...

WASHINGTON — The “Stand Your Ground” laws in Florida and other states should all be repealed. At best, they are redundant. At worst, as in the Trayvon Martin killing, they are nothing but a license to kill. Police in Sanford, Fla., cited the statute as grounds for their decision not to file charges against Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was strolling home from a...

From “the spark is gone” to the “walking dead” is quite a jump, but the latter is how Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post characterizes the present phase of the Republican primary. In today’s The Fix, a daily political weblog at the Post website, Cillizza begins with: ”This is how primary campaigns end — not with a bang but with a whimper. Or, more accurately, a whine,” and discusses the latest...

Friends have asked me why I haven’t commented on the killing of Trayvon Martin. The reason is because I (usually) try not to comment on hot news stories when they first break, especially when it’s an emotional subject like a suspected racially-motivated killing. I figure it’s best to wait until all the facts are in before drawing conclusions. I didn’t look at it over this weekend but...

UPDATE II: See the New York Times version of the sparks flying here UPDATE I: Apparently the spark is not gone — at least not with Santorum. Santorum generated quite a few sparks on Sunday in a mini-confrontation with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleni. When asked by Zeleni, “You said Mitt Romney is the worst Republican in the country. Is that true?” a sparkly Santorum lashed back “Stop...

I think well trained Dispatchers are in fact, multi-talented people who know about de-escalating situations when possible, and getting the stock rolling to help whenever possible. I just bolded aspects of the job I found interesting, or hadnt known about or understood before. Yours might be similar or different… The Job The Emergency Dispatcher receives complaints from public concerning crimes and police...

I paid a posthumous visit last week to the world I once lived in—-a Manhattan gathering of privileged people giving money and time to a cause of caring and concern. Nothing has changed. The well-to-do and a few celebrities mingle at a reception and then sit in an auditorium to applaud expressions of social and political decency. The faces are new, but they belong to people trying to reach out past the solitude...

I’ve been self employed for 42 years. When I see 3 weeks paid vacation… it is slightly tempting … but in a whole other way, I sense three weeks’ vacation per year for a Emergency Communications Specialist is gratefully embraced and perhaps ought, just for rest and restoration’s sake, to be three weeks vacation TWICE a year. Orlando Police Department Communications Center Equal...

Citizens experiencing a true emergency phone 911 to talk to a dispatcher. By quickly determining the situation and location, a 911 dispatcher is able to communicate the necessary information to fire fighters, police officers or other emergency response technicians. Becoming a 911 dispatcher involves a lengthy application process followed by a three to six month training program. Continuing education is a necessary...