Here is my nominee for the WORLD PRIZE, the best prize ever. The WORLD PRIZE should go to the producer of this Power Point. Think of the understanding, wisdom, beauty, eloquence, talent, love, etc. that went into this!

A couple of years ago I started to dabble in Scrabble on Facebook.  I had never Scrabbled before and I wrote about that learning curve. Now, according to the Scrabble tally, I have played exactly 300 games.   And I’ve learned a few more things.

It was my understanding that on the board game, Scrabble, you had to rely on your brain and the dictionary was only for looking up a disputed word.  One of the first things you learn on FB Scrabble is that there is no such thing as a disputed word. As soon as you play a word it is either accepted or rejected; there’s no arguing. Another difference is that on Facebook Scrabble they provide you with a list of acceptable two-letter words and you don’t have to be able to define them. You can play ae, aa, qi, hm, pe, oe and have no idea what they mean and that’s OK. Right off it has become clear that the rules for playing online are different.

So I looked up the rules for FBS (Facebook Scrabble). They say that it is OK to check the validity of a word before it is played in the little box that is  provided with the game. You could play around with the letters on your rack until you found a combination of letters that added up points and you didn’t have to know what the word meant at all.  When you came up with a word like hae or qat or arim or whatever, that was fine.  And if using the little valid word-checker was OK, then it would certainly be OK to  use a regular dictionary or a Scrabble dictionary but the word-checker was much handier.

I have an excellent vocabulary but eventually I noticed that other people were using words that I had never heard of–that they were finding words in their 7-tiles that were really unlikely to be in their vocabulary.  That was when I discovered the World Wide Web had anagram finding sites that would list all the valid words in your 7 tiles.  You could spend all day re-arranging your 7 tiles and never come up with some of the more unusual ones.   It was a real time-saver.  You filled in your 7 tiles and chose the word that best fit the situation.  I figured it was just a time-saver and I was already spending too much time on Scrabble.   Everyone else was coming up with weird words and I knew their vocabularies were unlikely to be better than mine.

Well, along came Katy, my daughter, and we played a few games, which I usually won.  “Are you cheating?”  she asked.  “Where are all those long words coming from?”  I explained to her that I had seen no rules on Facebook Scrabble against using aids, and we were even provided with the aids I’ve already mentioned.  I told her she was welcome to get her kids to help her, use the dictionary, whatever! There seemed to be no rule against it.

So, Katy fixed my wagon.   All of a sudden her Scrabble playing reached new heights.  I had never scored over 500 points in a game.   All of a sudden Katy’s scores were way up there in the stratosphere!  I could tell by the way the games were going she had found some super aid somewhere and I was never going to win a game again.

So, now I know.  The internet  not only has word-finding aids  but actually game-playing sites!!  You can reproduce your Scrabble board on their grid and it will not only show you the best possible word you can play, given the tiles you have, but where to play it.   “Never lose another game,”  it says!

One of the Scrabble help sites says

Please use our Scrabble Helper responsibly. It is up to you to cheat or not to cheat; there is a thin line between cheating and improving your vocabulary. Our professional Scrabble players – who use our solver daily – make sure to click on words and learn dictionary definitions.

Does that mean that most people use a “solver”  and it’s OK provided you learn the meaning of the words you choose?

Well, I thought I would poll some of the friends I was playing online with, and I asked them, honestly, were they using other sites than the Facebook site for help when they played a game. Some didn’t reply. The three that did said:

Used to use a scrabble words web site. But I don’t use anything anymore. I just play words.

Not during a game.

I use the teacher feature on the iPhone version of scrabble which tells you what the best play was after you go. It helps me quite a bit. Unlike the board game I also use the electronic scrabble dictionary extensively. As such my scores are generally higher when playing electronically. We have a HODSON rule that one can only use what comes with the scrabble app.  If you use some of the sites you pretty much can make the best play every time. Then the game will evolve into luck of the draw in which case we might as well just play “war” with cards and save the trouble.

The fact that some of the people I polled did not respond tells a tale.  In fact, my first tip that others were not playing the old-fashioned board game scrabble  came when one of them got his highest word score with a medical word that had a one-in-a-gazillion chance of being in his vocabulary.

I’ve also learned that those who play from their smart phones and iPads have the teacher-feature mentioned above which will tell you the best word you could have played (after the play is done) — which means maybe you can play it next time!

When you get right down to it, using an anagram site to find all the words in your tiles is really small time cheating.    There’s big time cheating to be done using the computer’s brain instead of yours.   It will tell you what word to play and where to put it!  Katy found it wasn’t as much fun that way.  Scrabblers that use  Scrabble apps on their smart phones or iPads have an advantage over those using Facebook, because they have the teacher-feature.

Recently an opponent played the word bean and my little word-checker box assured me that beano was a valid word.  I played beano along with rhino in the other direction and the points added up nicely.   When my opponent played jaw the word-checker told me jawed was valid and when it ended up on a TW square the points were good.   In my opinion using the helps that come with the game is not cheating.

Katy and I are still enjoying online Scrabble  but staying away from the sites that will play the game for you.  I like the HODSON rule mentioned above that you can only use what comes with the Scrabble app.

Anyone else want to weigh in?

It was about thirty years ago that the reality of media bias first hit home. I was becoming a pro-life activist and had finally made the six hour trek to Washington DC to protest legalized abortion and stand for the right to life of every human being. The crowd was awesome! People came on buses from the mid-west and the south, whole familes, whole schools, every ethnicity, every color, Jews, Christians, and just plain pro-lifers. When I stood before the Supreme Court and looked down the avenue there were people marching as far as the eye could see, curb to curb, singing, praying, witnessing. It was estimated that several hundred thousand were present and I looked forward to reading all about it in my local paper where I hoped to learn the official estimate of the crowd size.

Duh. Now I know. Don’t expect anything like decent coverage just because several hundred thousand are amassed. Inside my home newspaper (nothing on the front page, of course) were two black and white photos, one of a few pro-lifers holding their signs, another of a couple who were pro-choice. I imagine they called that coverage fair and balanced. I didn’t remember seeing any pro-choicers at all. The reporter surely had to hunt for them!

Since then I’ve read time and time again that mainstream media (MSM) leans heavily to the left. Of course those on the left think that is nonsense and of course they think we conservatives don’t know what we’re talking about.

Tim Groseclose, Ph. D.,  author of the recently published Left Turn:    How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, thinks that within political science there is a small area of real science in which truths can be demonstrated with graphs and mathematics.  It is possible to accurately quantify the number of times an event is reported and the minutes spent reporting it. He has come up with what he calls a PQ (political quotient) which is a valuable indication of bias in media or in politicians.

According to Groseclose media bias is more a sin of omission rather than deliberate inaccuracy. They cover what suits their ideology. You hear nothing about evidence to the contrary.

Another such book is Bias:  A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News, by Bernard Goldberg (2003).  He followed this by A Slobbering Love Affair:  The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media (2009). An award-winning journalist several times over, Goldberg is now with Fox News.

On August 28, 2010, Glenn Beck held the Restoring Honor rally in Washington DC. I was impressed enough to blog about it, calling it a “watershed event.”   I know better now than to be disappointed that it got little press or TV coverage.

Those who rely on television and newspapers are going to get a severely skewed picture of what is actually going on in the world. Were it not for blogs, social media and radio would there, could there, be a Tea Party?

Last month over a million young folk from around the world gathered for a week in Madrid, Spain, to pray and to listen. It seems to me that would be a matter of great import. But did you hear about it?

World Youth Day, Madrid, 2011

Keep tuned, but not just to MSM.  At the above World Youth Day Pope Benedict told the young folks that they “will be swimming against the tide in a society with a relativistic culture which wishes neither to seek nor hold on to the truth.”  Right on,  Benny!

Unaccustomed as we are to the techniques of photoshoppers, forgers, and forensic investigators we can only look at the evidence presented and try to figure things out. Welcome to the evidence. We know, at the start, that a president that promises transparency does not spend millions to prevent his long form birth certificate from being shown. Something is very fishy. What is he so determined to hide? And why?

Obama has no option but to make light of the whole birth certificate issue. He says we have more important things to deal with, but here, at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, someone went to a lot of trouble of prepare Obama’s little talk.

It seems that Trump’s inquiring about Obama’s birth certificate prompted the appearance of the long-awaited long form. I wonder what will come forth after the release on May 17 of Jerome Corsi’s new book Where’s the Birth Certificate: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President. It is already #1 on Amazon.

Time will tell. Personally, I hope Donald Trump realizes that I am counting on him for a final verdict on the “birther” issue. Why do I expect more truth from Trump than from Obama?

Donald Trump on our teflon President:

Related:

Critics argue Obama long form birth certificate is fake

Is Obama’s “birth certificate” a  fake?

Why does Obama have two different birth doctors?

pdf of birth certificate released April 2011

Obama Using Stolen Connecticut SS number

Further expert analysis of Obama documents

Ex-CIA expert claims document forgery

Final report, expert evidence of photoshopped certificate:PDF

This video is the last thing I will post on this subject. SNOPES and FACT CHECK both contend Obama’s birth certificate is valid.

Later. Changed my mind. Expert photoshops similar certificate:
http://patriotupdate.com/13452/forged-creation-matches-obamas-birth-certificate

Also found this video!!!

Corsi/Breitbart, Sherif Joe Arpaio Cold Case Posse

Georgia sent this to me.  There’s a lot of truth in it.

Senior citizens are constantly being criticized for every conceivable deficiency of the modern world, real or imaginary. We know we take responsibility for all we have done and do not blame others.

HOWEVER, upon reflection, we
would like to point out that it was NOT the senior citizens who took:

The melody out of music,

The pride out of appearance,

The courtesy out of driving,

The romance out of love,

The commitment out of marriage,

The responsibility out of parenthood,

The togetherness out of the family,

The learning out of education,

The service out of patriotism,

The Golden Rule from rulers,

The nativity scene out of cities,

The civility out of behavior,

The refinement out of language,

The dedication out of employment,

The prudence out of spending,

The ambition out of achievement or
God out of government and school.

And we certainly are NOT the ones who eliminated patience and tolerance from personal relationships and interactions with others!!

And, we do understand the meaning of patriotism, and remember those who have fought and died for our country.

Just look at the Seniors with tears in their eyes and pride in their hearts as they stand at attention with their hand over their hearts!

YES, I’M A SENIOR CITIZEN!

I’m the life of the party…… even if it lasts until 8 p.m.

I’m very good at opening childproof caps…. with a hammer.

I’m awake many hours before my body allows me to get up.

I’m smiling all the time because I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.

I’m sure everything I can’t find is in a safe secure place, somewhere.

I’m wrinkled, saggy, lumpy, and that’s just my left leg.

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

Yes, I’m a SENIOR CITIZEN and I think I am having the time of my life!

Now if I could only remember who sent this to me, I wouldn’t send it back to them, but I would send it to many more too!

I certainly couldn’t have said it better myself.

~~~

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. — 92 year old

Kudos to Bishop Timothy Dolan of New York for weighing in on the censorship of a billboard erected in SoHo depicting a young African-American girl with the caption:

THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE FOR AN

AFRICAN-AMERICAN IS IN THE WOMB

This is a statement of fact.   More black human beings die from abortion than from any other cause.  Are there facts that cannot be stated?  How can that be?  Following is Bishop Dolan’s comment on the efforts of the pro-abortion faction to shut down Crisis Pregnancy Centers in New York, not because they provide a choice ( let’s hear it for choice!) but because they cut down on abortions which they say (out of the other side of their mouth) that they want to be rare:

This controversy over Intro 371 reminds me of a conversation I had not too long ago with a dedicated woman medical professional who works in one of the wonderful crisis pregnancy centers here in New York City.  “Archbishop,” she said to me, “we’re here to help women who want an alternative to abortion. We don’t get massive subsidies from the government like the abortion clinics.  We sure don’t have the well-heeled donors Planned Parenthood has.  Why are some people trying so hard to get rid of us?  Why is the city government harassing us?  All we want is to be left alone to do our work.”

It’s a good question, and one I couldn’t answer.

It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of places to get an abortion in New York City.  It grieves me to think that we can be called the abortion capital of the world, as 41% of all pregnancies in New York end in abortion.  If a woman in this city wants an abortion, it is distressingly easy to get one.

It’s also not as if this kind of bill hasn’t been tried elsewhere and been found wanting.  A similar law was recently declared unconstitutional in Baltimore.  Why then would our City Council spend valuable time and energy promoting this type of harassing bill?  Aren’t there more pressing concerns with our City’s budget, with the education system, with basics like pothole repair?

And if an industry ever needed more oversight and regulation, it’s the abortion industry, as the recent horrors from Pennsylvania demonstrated.  Yet it is the little pregnancy care centers that come under attack.

This asks the delicate question if people who claim to be “pro-choice,” but seek to silence anyone who would help a woman to have her baby, are really interested in “choice” at all.  Witness the recent gag-order imposed on a pro-life billboard last week.    These pregnancy centers will not only help a mother to give birth, but they will also find her assistance if she wants to keep her baby, or help the mother find a good home for her child through adoption.  Sure, they’ll never have the big donors or flashy celebrity support that the abortion centers have, but they are making a real difference in the lives of these women and their babies, pre-born and born.

So, why the major push to get rid of these centers and the dedicated, humble, loving people who work there?  Why can’t they just be left alone to do their work?

I didn’t have the answer for my friend. Because I don’t think there is one.

And, again, Bishop Dolan has this to say:

Another ad has been generating some fierce reactions. Here in New York, a billboard was recently displayed, that simply stated “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.” This message was accompanied by a photograph of a young, African-American girl.

Is that message unpleasant? Is it upsetting? Does it get our attention?

Yes!

Because the message is somberly true. The City of New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently released its vital statistics from a year ago which showed that 59.8% of African-American pregnancies in New York City ended in abortion. That’s even higher than the chilling city-wide average of 41% of pregnancies ending in abortion. (I joined other community leaders from a diversity of religious and ethnic backgrounds at a press conference sponsored by the Chiaroscuro Foundation about this a few weeks ago.)

So why has the billboard suddenly been taken down? What was it that moved many of our elected officials to condemn this ad and call for the gag order. Are they claiming that free speech is a right enjoyed only by those who favor abortion or their pet causes? Do they believe that unpleasant and disturbing truths should not be spoken? Or are they afraid that when people are finally confronted with the reality of the horror of abortion, and with the toll that it is taking in our city, particularly in our African-American community, that they will be moved to defend innocent, unborn, human life?

Perhaps I’m more saddened by this intolerance right now because on Monday I will be celebrating the funeral mass for Doctor Bernard Nathanson, that giant of the pro-life movement, who died earlier this week. If you don’t know Dr. Nathanson’s story, you should. At one time, he fought hard to promote and expand abortion on demand in this state and in our country. He was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League. He ran what he called the “largest abortion clinic in the Western world,” and bragged about personally performing thousands of abortions. But, when Dr. Nathanson was confronted with the undeniable truth, when he could see the unborn baby in the womb through the use of ultrasound technology, he abandoned his support for abortion and became a crusader for the protection of the life of the baby in the womb.

His courage and bravery should be an inspiration to us, especially when we have to face unpleasant and sobering truths.

GOD BLESS BISHOP DOLAN AND ALVEDA KING, MARTIN LUTHER KING’S NIECE!

~~~

In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished. — Pope Benedict XVI

I knew a priest who said that he had always felt a special camaraderie with fellow priests. They had similar educations, similar lives, similar challenges, they even believed in the same God. “But now,” he said, “I first have to find out of they accept Humanae Vitae before I know that we’re on the same page.”  All Catholic priests don’t seem to teach the same things anymore.

Never before has the Catholic church been a place where you could believe anything you wanted to – to have your “own” truth. It has always been a church where Jesus was Lord, adultery was a sin, chastity was a virtue, marriage was between a man and a women, babies were a blessing, and sex was designed for both bonding and babies.

We had, in our parish, a few years back, a priest who spoke against abortion. Two people got up and walked out following his homily. I wasn’t present at that time but I would hope he spoke about God’s forgiveness, about the people of God who come to the aid of pregnant women in distressful situations, about loving arms waiting to adopt babies, about trusting the God who is Love and who also said Thou Shalt Not Kill.  He should have said that killing babies is intrinsically wrong but there are degrees of culpability and God’s mercy waits in the confessional.   We need to have the courage to say what we believe.

I have blogged often about marriage, homosexuality and contraception and my views (which I believe are the views of our church) are here for all to read. Jesus did not start a namby-pamby church that just says “don’t be mean.” Because of his love for us, God has given us guidelines for life. Things always work out better His Way. We need to be challenged to follow God’s teachings and his leadings.

I would urge anyone who does not get the Real Catholic YouTube videos to log on to RealCatholicTV.com and sign up. You won’t be disappointed.

Here is Michael Voris telling the difference between Pew Sitters and Real Catholics.

~~~

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. — Romans 8:28

Others have said what Dr. Hal Lewis is now saying, but they haven’t had his credentials.

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk  and Why Flip a Coin.

Here is the letter sent on October 8, 2010 to the President of the American Physical Society.

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).

Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

Hal

~~~

 

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. — Sir Walter Scott

The comment  was short and sweet.  It said only, “I hate hypocrites.”  My first thought was that it was probably directed to people on the right, the religious type, people who say they believe one thing and act in another way. That seems to be the only time you hear folks calling others “hypocrites.”  Like when a priest molests a juvenile.  Like when a Christian embezzles money.  Or when Ted Haggard  confesses to homosexual wanderings.   Which, of course, got me to wondering.  Why are only religious people accused of being hypocrites?

The answer is immediately obvious.  Religious folks proclaim a moral code that they are supposed to adhere to and live by.  Being human, inevitably they stray.  They may, most of the time, live according to that code but when they fail they immediately become hypocrites and are fair game for lefties.  Actually, they hardly have a chance.  Sooner or later they will become angry and strike out, or keep the wallet and the money they found, or have  too many drinks.  The minute they veer from true north, whether east or west, or God forbid, full south –they are hypocrites!

Folks on the left have no such problem, because they have no such code.  They have no Ten Commandments, no Sermon on the Mount, no Golden Rule.  Their “code” rests on shifting sand, depending on what they can get away with, what their friends are doing, what feels good or floats their boat.

When you get right down to it,  there are only two types of people – those who have a God and those who don’t. You’ll find your hypocrites among the God people.  You can’t be a hypocrite if you have nothing to live up to.

~~~

A wise man’s heart inclines him toward the right, but a fool’s heart toward the left. — Ecclesiastes 10:2

Just yesterday, listening to Dr. Laura, I found myself saying, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!” and actually clapping my hands.  A mother and son had called Dr. Laura for help.  The son had just had a run-in with Dad violent enough so that they had called the police.  During the course of the call Mom and son had talked honestly with Dr. Laura, the son saying he did not think his father loved him and was constantly on his case, the mother explaining that the son and the father were of opposite types.  I will not recap the whole story but in talking with the son Dr. Laura beautifully explained to him that the father was actually coming from love but worried about the boy’s future and needed to feel he was handling things, etc., etc.  It was my opinion that she gave the boy much needed insight, that she handled the psychological underpinnings of the situation with a surgical precision born of years of experience.   It was truly beautiful.   Dr. Laura has not survived 30 years on radio without having much on the ball.  Callers are constantly thanking her for what she does for them.

Today I learned Dr. Laura will not be renewing her radio contract at the end of the year  because of public outcry after a recent program.    I am more than dismayed.  An intelligent, honest voice should never be silenced.  Yes, I listened as she said “nigger” several times over the radio.  If it is true that blacks actually call each other “nigger” frequently, with impunity, she should be allowed to speak that truth.  If she lies, call her on that.  But don’t claim that there is a word that only blacks are allowed to speak.  As I repeatedly say on my blog,  truth is truth.

Some years back Laura had to apologize for calling homosexuals “deviants.”   If there is indeed such a thing as  “normal,” then homosexuals deviate from that normal.  Again, truth is truth.

Dr. Laura, some things you say I do not agree with.  But like millions of others, I appreciate the good that you do and the love that you bring to your work.  Callers get an honest opinion from a professional – free! – what more could one ask for?  You were a very valuable resource and I am hoping you will reconsider giving up your program.

If you actually do leave, in my opinion it would be a good idea to gather a big batch of “The Best of Dr. Laura” into a package that could be sold to radio stations to be  broadcast for years to come. Then your light could shine on and on.

Don’t go, Dr. Laura.

~~~

I want to make it clear I’m not retiring, I’m not quitting, I’m stronger and freer to say my mind, and I have the freedom to speak my mind when I’m not in a venue where my advertisers and stations will be attacked, she says.  So I’m very liberated. — Dr. Laura