Category: random

Here’s an example of what’s wrong with our society today: When asked what she’d do if she had a son misbehaving like Justin Bieber, First Lady Michelle Obama says, “I would pull him close. You know, I don’t know if it would be advice as much as action. I would be very present in his life right now. And I would be probably with him a good chunk of the time, just there to talk, to figure out what’s going on in his head, to figure out who’s in his life and who’s not, you know.”

She adds, “…he’s still a kid. He’s still growing up.”

Please do not blame Bieber’s troubles on the fact that he’s only 19-years old, not when there are 19-year-olds like Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Myles Kerr, who while running in his military gear, slowed his pace to motivate Brandon Fuchs struggling to finish ‘The 2013 Jeff Drenth Memorial 5K’ in Michigan, last August.

Beiber’s age is jus’ a lame excuse to allow him off the hook for his piss-poor behavior.

With the increase in surplus-military equipment and centralized information hubs, called ‘Spectrum Centers,’ local law enforcement agencies appear to be growing dark-hearted. The news is filled more and more with agencies and their personnel doing things that defy common sense or are outright illegal, if not unconstitutional.

FAILURE TO AID

A Florida police officer is under fire for failing to help dying car crash victims and it was all caught on tape by a dashboard camera. Off-duty Miami Police Sergeant Javier Ortiz came upon the car crash scene that ended up killing two University of Miami graduate students, Ying Chen and Hao Liu.

Ortiz jumped into action to try and help the victims. Pinecrest Officer Ana Carrasco arrived on the scene shortly afterward and Ortiz directed her to work on trying to resuscitate the man.

“I got no response. She just stood there,” Ortiz says.

PRIVATE PROPERTY TAKE-OVER

Also in Florida, homeowner Deborah Franz was outraged after a SWAT team used her home to gain a tactical advantage — without her permission and without notifying her — during a six-hour standoff with her neighbor. This is nothing new.

In 2011, A Henderson Nevada Police SWAT TEAM broke down Anthony Mitchell’s front door with a battering ram in during a neighborhood-wide lockdown after Mitchell refused to allow his home be used for police purposes in a domestic violence response. Officers entered his home, fired pepper spray pellets at him and his dog, and then arrested him for obstruction of justice.

A SIX-BIT ARREST

How about the man who was arrested in Houston moments after he gave a homeless man 75 cents?

Greg Snider was on business when a homeless man approached his car window and asked for spare change. As Snider gave the man some change and as he pulled onto the highway, a police car came up behind him and started flashing its lights and sirens.

After Snider came to a stop, the police officer rushed at him, screaming and yelling. Snider was pulled from his car, handcuffed and thrown in the back of the police cruiser as ten more police cars showed up at the scene.

It turns out the police thought he had exchanged drugs with the homeless man. The police then asked if they could search his car and he gave them permission.

Authorities brought out drug-sniffing dogs to search Snider’s car and found nothing. They then allowed him to go free.

NO-KNOCK RAID

In Ankeny, Iowa, police officers executed a search warrant at a family’s home looking for $1,000 in merchandise purchased with a stolen credit card. Police claim they knocked on the door, but a surveillance video shows an officer pounding on the side of the house seconds before officers used a battering ram to bust through the front door.

Sally Prince says if they had only knocked first, she would have consented to a search of her home. Police are also seen destroying a security camera outside the home and covering another with some sort of fabric.

It could have gotten worse as Prince’s son, Justin Ross, has a permit to carry a firearm on his person. When he heard commotion, he says he drew his weapon while in the bathroom and prepared for an intruder to come through the door.

Luckily, he heard one of the officers say “police” before they kicked in the door, so he re-holstered his weapon, sat back down and placed his hands in his lap away from his gun. In the end a search of the home did not result in the recovery of the items police believe were bought with stolen credit cards.

EMERGENCY VEHICLE NO PARKING ZONE

And while responding to a rollover accident in Chula Vista, a California Highway Patrol officer handcuffed a firefighter after a dispute over where the fire engine should park. The officer ordered Engine Operator Jacob Gregoir to move the fire truck off the center divide or he would be arrested.

As he worked the scene and checked the overturned car for more victims, Gregior told the unidentified CHP officer that he would have to check with his captain. That’s when the officer arrested him.

Gregoir had parked the truck behind an ambulance to provide protection for the emergency responders from oncoming traffic. This is a standard safety procedure most fire crews are taught.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

A California couple had their five-month-old baby taken by police last year, after they took the infant to get a second opinion on a medical procedure. Anna and Alex Nikolayev took their baby, who has a heart murmur, to Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento when he started exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

After giving her child an antibiotic she didn’t authorize, Anna decided to get a second-opinion. The doctors at Sutter Memorial argued against consulting other health experts, pressuring her to stay put, but Anna remained firm.

She took her baby from the hospital without a proper discharge, and went straight to Kaiser Permanente Hospital. While at Kaiser, the police showed up to take the child into protective custody but leaving after doctors said the baby was safe to go home with his parents.

The following day the police arrived at the family’s home, and without a warrant, took Sammy. The baby remains in protective custody.

NEVADA’S THOUGHT-POLICE

Finally, Californian Tan Nguyen was driving on Interstate 80 through Northern Nevada, when Humboldt County Sheriff Sergeant Lee Dove pulled him over for speeding, but instead of getting a ticket, Dove confiscated $50-thousand in cash Nguyen had in the vehicle.

In this incident report, Dove writes that he observed Nguyen seemed “nervous”, was “argumentative”, and that the car smelled of marijuana.  Nguyen was not cited for doing anything illegal, although Dove wrote in his report, “I felt he was not part of the legal traveling public,” which he cited as justification for taking Nguyen’s money.

Nguyen has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s office. Meanwhile, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Pasquale responded by saying, “If we think the money was obtained illegally, we have a right to seize it.”

My ability to remain self-reliant has been on my mind for the past three or four weeks, with no answers coming forward. But then I turned on the television and as I flipped through the channels, I saw John Ratsenberger (Cliff Clavin on Cheers, Toy Story’s Hamm the Piggy Bank, and Yeti from Monsters University) on the ‘700 Club,’ and what he was saying caught my ear:

“We used to be a country of self-reliant people. As individuals, we were self-reliant. Regardless of your job, you could be a pastor, you could be an attorney, you could be a stockbroker, but you still had other skills,” Ratzenberger told CBN host Wendy Griffith. “You could change a car tire, mend your roof, do some gardening, you knew something about horses, something or farming. But that’s all changed. So we’ve gone from being a self-reliant country to a self-deluded country. And then we  assume someone else is going to take care of this problem for us.”

His comments ‘hit the nail on the head’ so to speak for me and I realize – I’ve nothing to worry about when it comes my ability to be self-reliant.

A purse snatching attempt in the parking lot of the Cannery Casino in North Las Vegas left a 79-year-old woman injured January 18th. She held on to the purse, even after being knocked to the ground and dragged, forcing the would-be robber to give-up and jump into a silver Volkswagen Jetta, where he and the driver sped away.

Brothers, Brent and Raymond Cline were arrested after police received a call from their step-father. Sean Schmitt told investigators who they were, that the car used in the robbery attempt was his, when the two young men would be home, and when to come get them.

As the investigation progresses, a number of people have tried to connect the brothers to a hit and run that happened Halloween night last year involving another silver Jetta. In the incident, 6-year-old Brazyl Ward was critically injured.

Brazyl needed emergency brain surgery, suffered a broken femur, and was put into a medically induced coma. She was released from University Medical Center in late December and still has limited movement in the right side of her face, and will have to relearn how to chew, eat, and walk.

Investigators continue to look for the other vehicle, which they suspect has damage to its front right side. They are also search for the driver, whose described a Latino male.

The pair’s mother, Lyn Schmitt says Raymond was with her and her youngest son, in the Jetta, trick-or-treating at the time of the hit and run. Meanwhile, Brent was at home with his step-father, handing out candy.

They remain in jail, charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and attempted robbery.

For the last couple of months I’ve been avoiding writing about politics as it effects our American society, because I’ve been wanting to find a way to give my opinion without completely ticking people who disagree with me off. I came to the idea that my thoughts should be integrated with history lessons, not jus’ commentary.

At first it appeared as if this new approach would solve my dilemma, but then I looked at the news this morning and I found myself lost. There is so much negative news (in my opinion) that it is overwhelming.

For instance, police in Florida forced a woman out of her home because SWAT was conducting an operation against her neighbor. They didn’t ask her for the usage of the house – but rather threatened to arrest her if she refused to comply.

How do I teach a history lesson out of that?

Sure, I can point out that it is unconstitutional to “quarter soldiers” in private citizens home without their permission. But Progressives will be quick to point out the police are not ‘soldiers,’ and thus render my argument moot.

This is because of how ‘complicit,’ our ‘free’ media has become with the Progressive movement. I found two examples that have left me shaking my head and in complete fear.

The first is from the publication ‘Salon,’ which earlier this week published an essay in defense of Communism.  The second is from ‘Rolling Stone,’ which lauds the same ideal.

While neither publications position is a surprise to me, it has left me shaken. The idea that ‘Communism,’ is being mainstreamed is frightening to me.

There is no way for me to combat this and it leaves me hopeless and empty.

Finally, the number of ‘newspeak’ incidents that both the administration and the media are engaged in has become a daily nightmare. The latest comes from the Congressional Office of Budget and Management report which says more Americans will find themselves either underemployed or unemployed due to ‘ObamaCare,’ than initially reported when the law was conceived.

However that is not how NBC or ABC chose to tell it. Instead they went with what Adminatration spokesman Jay Carney claimed the CBO report said, “…more Americans will now be able to choose whether they want to work full-time or not.”

In the end all I know is what is right and what is wrong. Forcing a person to give up their property, whether temporary or not, is wrong; claiming communism is good for a society is wrong; and lying to the American people is wrong.

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?”

McCarthyism, named after Wisconsin Republican Joseph McCarthy, was a period of intense anti-communism, also known as the ‘Red Scare,’ which occurred in the U.S. from 1948 to about 1956, when the government actively persecuted those suspected of being communists. Loyalty tests were required for government and other employment and lists of subversive organizations were maintained.

This ‘Red Scare’ affected many in Hollywood, resulting in arrests of various figures in the film industry. Many were also ‘blacklisted,’ unable to work in the industry (although some screenwriters were able to work under pseudonyms).

In the Senate, the primary committee for investigating Communists was the ‘Senate Internal Security Subcommittee,’ formed in 1950 and charged with ensuring the enforcement of laws relating to “espionage, sabotage, and the protection of the internal security of the United States.”

The SISS was headed by Nevada Democrat Pat McCarran, who gained a reputation for careful and extensive investigations. However McCarran’s character is questionable  according current Nevada Democrat Senator Harry Reid.

“Pat McCarran was one of the most anti-Semitic — some of you might know my wife’s Jewish — one of the most anti-black, one of the most prejudiced people who has ever served in the Senate,” claims Reid.

McCarran passed away in 1954.

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Tea Party?”

An actress is facing backlash in San Francisco’s Latino community, after she voiced support for a conservative candidate for California governor. Maria Conchita Alonso starred in a campaign ad for Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County, a Tea Party favorite who is seeking the Republican nomination.

Donnelly has voiced strong views against illegal immigration and was once involved with the Minutemen Project, a group that patrolled the border with Mexico to catch immigrants coming across. Alonso received an earful from listeners of Spanish-language radio station, after she said in an interview that she supported many of Donnelly’s views on illegal immigration.

“Are you now, or have you ever been critical of President Obama?”

Conservative commentator and best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging $20,000 in campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate. According the indictment, around August 2012, D’Souza reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 on behalf of Wendy Long, a lawyer and Republican who sought to unseat Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand as New York’s junior senator.

Long is not named in the indictment.

D’Souza is charged with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, and one count of causing false statements to be made. Federal law in 2012 limited primary and general election campaign contributions to $2,500 each, for a total of $5,000, from any individual to any one candidate.

He also directed a 2012 film critical of President Barack Obama, “2016: Obama’s America,” and has written books including “The End of Racism,” “Life after Death: The Evidence” and “Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream.”

“Are you now, or have you ever been a spokesperson for an Israeli-based company?”

Actress Scarlett Johansson is the latest casualty of a widening campaign to boycott her.  This after, she agreed to become the spokeswoman for SodaStream, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes home soda machines and has its main plant in an Israeli industrial park next to the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim.

Johansson’s decision ticked-off Oxfam International, a humanitarian aid organization that she had served as global ambassador for eight years. They forced her to resign, saying they oppose all trade with Israeli settlements, deemed illegal by most of the international community.

“Are you now, or have you ever owned a fire arm in your home?”

ABC News wants you and me to spy on our neighbors. In an ‘investigative report,’ by Diana Sawyer called ‘Young Guns,’ she recommends parents go to their next door neighbor and ask if they had guns in the house and to find out if they are locked up or not.

Furthermore they use children to demonize guns but placing unloaded and unattended weapons in view of children at play. ABC used these instances to scare parents and try to prove firearms in the home are merely death wishes.

In one of the few instances in which the boys didn’t play with the gun, an older boy acted as the voice of reason and warned them not to touch the firearm. Afterwards, producers removed the 10-year-old from the classroom and as soon as the older boy left, the two younger ones grabbed the gun and played with it.

Not used in the ‘report’ are these Center for Disease Control facts: 81 children between the ages of one and 14, were killed accidentally by a gun. Suffocation is number one with 174 for the same age group during the same time period and third is poisonings with only 10.

“Are you now, or have you ever dissented?”

Dissent is to disagree with a current government policy, an individual or a political party. In some political systems, dissent may be formally expressed by way of opposition politics, while politically repressive regimes may prohibit any form of dissent, leading to suppression of dissent and the encouragement of social or political activism.

Though often misattributed to founding-father Thomas Jefferson, the quote “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” argues that a healthy society needs not only to protect, but also to encourage disagreement to remain at liberty.

Chasing family history can be fun, but it can also be difficult and even a little surprising. For instance I’ve been trying learn why my great-grandfather Luis Jose Olivera left his family in Scotia, California, and returned to the Azores.

It could be that I’ve finally found the reason and it is not a happy one. It appears he was in trouble with the law and may have been compelled to leave the country.

From the 1938 ‘Modesto Bee and Herald-News,’  datelined: “Merced, August 9 – District attorney F.A. Silveira yesterday filed complaints charging eight dairymen with violation of a quarantine order of the department of agriculture issued August 1^st against the movement of milk taken from reactors into market channels.”

The final paragraph of the story reads: “The dairymen named are Joe Lawrence, Antone G. Pimentel, George Silveira, Antonio Silva, Saverino M. Souza, Joaquin Olivera, Frank Roberto, Joe Oliveira and Augustine Ferreira.”

A number of times during my searches for great-Grandpa Luis, I’ve found his name and my Grandpa Joaquin Luis Olivera to be confused with one another. It has happened to me a time or two, when people referred to me as ‘Thomas Darby, Jr.,’ when they actually meant my dad, whose full name was ‘Thomas Junior Darby.’

(I’ve also found instances of Lou, Louis, Joe and Joseph.)

Great-grandpa’s troubles seem to start five years earlier though, when is appears he was implicated in a ‘swindle case probe.’ I found the story in the January 28^, 1938 edition of the Oakland Tribune.

Evidently a dragnet had been established to keep the alleged ringleader from getting away. In this case V.L Coffelt and L.W. Garcia were arrested by the District Earl Warren’s office.

It completed the roundup of officials and agents of the ‘Pittsburg Building and Loan Association’ and the ‘Lusitania Corporation, Ltd.,’ who were accused of participation in a swindle of some Central California residents.

According to the article, Coffelt, vice-president of the Pittsburg company and secretary of the other, was captured on the Altamont Pass highway after eluding police sent to Los Angeles. As for Garcia, described as “an agent for the interlocking companies,” he was arrested in Mariposa and returned to jail.

Two other men, also described as agents, Jack Freitas and Rufino Fernandez, were taken into custody at Fernandez’ Oakland home. Earlier that day, G.R Searl, secretary of the Pittsburg and president of the Lusitania, was arrested at the company’s headquarters, while agent Frank L. Smith, was handcuffed in Sacramento.

All were charged with grand theft and booked ‘for investigation,’ to prevent release on bail until witnesses, many of them unable to read or write, can identify them. All, with the exception of Coffelt, were taken to Hayward and questioned by the D.A., Warren.

So how does my great-Grandfather fit into all this?

Evidently, Fernandez told investigators that he acted as a ‘salesman,’ for the companies and that another company, ‘General Explosive & Powder Company,’ was brought into the case by Joaquin Olivera, of Niles. Meanwhile, Police Judge George H. Hickman, secretary of the powder company claimed no knowledge of the stock fraud scheme.

Fernandez also told officials that he ‘worked on’ Olivera and Antonio Silva to invest $7,000 and $6,000 respectively into the Lusitania Corporation.  He then admitted he directed Freitas to take Silva and Olivera to a couple of women’s homes to tell them about their investments and the great returns they were getting on the money.

Problem is, there were no returns and the women, smelled a rat, but not before handing over their savings to Freitas. Emily Pine gave the alleged con-artist over $6225 and later using the same ruse, bilked Antonia Gonsalves and her three daughters, Laura, Adeline and Louise, out of $1,500.

By all appearance, my great-grandpa was cleared of any charges brought against him and he even went on to become a complainant in the case against the company officers. But by then he was a marked man and under the watchful eye of the law and a second brush with the legal system sent him packing for the old country.

The chase continues.

In fairness, this news article is about two young men I have known since they were in grade school. Imagine their mother’s heartbreak, seeing one of her two eldest children in the television news, wanted for committing a violent crime.

That is how this story came to be known by me.

Las Vegas Metro police arrested two brothers in connection with a string of violent purse snatchings. Raymond and Brent Cline are suspected in at least four incidents in the northwest valley.

In a robbery on January 5^th, one of the men ran up behind a woman about midnight as she returned home and entered her garage near St. Rose Parkway and Bermuda Road. He grabbed her purse and dragged her across the driveway before she let go.

During another robbery, a woman was injured as one of the suspects ripped her wallet from her hands. In a third one, one of the suspects entered a grocery store within the area of Centennial Hills and Ann Road.

He then exited the business and approached the victim in the parking lot at which time he robbed her of her wallet. The suspect then ran and entered a vehicle which then sped off.

In September 2010, Brent Cline was charged with unlawful use and possession of drug paraphernalia. His older brother, Raymond was arrested in November 2011 for petty larceny.

Both men are in the Clark County Detention Facility awaiting hearings. Meanwhile Metro Police continue to investigate the robberies.

For years my family history has remained hidden from me. This is especially true on my father’s side, beginning with my Grandmother Agnes Ingabord Arne Darby, until now…

More…

And finally…

No wonder I crave adventure and identify with Vikings.

Today, I got my first piece of ‘personal’ mail for 2014 — not a bill or an ad, but a real letter. I’m so tickled pink, that I could hardly wait to share it with you.

It comes from my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Van Zanten, whose now 100-years-old. And with the note comes a nice photograph of her inside the card.

It reads:

“Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you very much for your beautiful and thoughtful Christmas Cards sent to Mom. As ones’ visited, they would take time to read them to her. She was one happy Lady receiving and hearing from you! As we get older many tasks we had taken for granted we are unable to do now. For years Mom enjoyed sending cards but unfortunately at her age and poor eyesight she is unable to continue. I promised her that I’d contact you all with a card thanking each and every one of you for thinking of her with your loving cards and notes. Mom greatly appreciated hearing from each of you and wanted to wish you all a very happy an healthy New Year 2014. When time allows please send her another line or two catching her up on your news. There is always someone around to read your cards/letters as she enjoys you keeping in touch with her.

Love to all. Valeria, Maurya and Darol.”

Excuse me, I have mail to answer.