In the wake of Facebook's News Feeds, we have this! AND IT'S AN OLD STORY.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR NEWS?

From Business Insider's Pamela Engle, Oct 21 2014.
News outlets like CNN and ABC News might have the biggest audiences, but they're not the most trusted across-the-board in America.

The most trusted news outlets in America, according to a new study from Pew Research Center, are actually British.

BBC and The Economist top the list of outlets that are trusted by every ideological group, while BuzzFeed and The Rush Limbaugh Show are at the bottom.

Conservative-leaning news outlets seem to be the least trusted among those with a mixed political ideology. Liberal-leaning outlets like Mother Jones and ThinkProgress also rank lower than major media players like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The news outlets that are considered trustworthy by every ideological group don't equate to the most popular outlets, however.
Americans say they get most of their political news from local TV, Facebook, and major networks like CNN and Fox News.
CNN and Fox News both had a high trust rating overall, but there is more of a dispute between ideological groups about whether they're trustworthy. For example, 88% of consistent conservatives said they trust Fox News, but only 14% said they trust CNN.
For the study, Pew surveyed a representative sample of randomly selected Americans.

DON'T BE BLUE

“Can’t We All JUST Get Along?”

“Can’t We All JUST Get Along?”

Famous words from the past that still deserves an answer that we won’t accept.

“The lie behind the buzzword of diversity could not be made more clear,” Thiel said Monday.
“If you don’t conform (to their ideology), then you don’t count as diverse, no matter what your personal background.”

So are we talking about RELIGION, RACIAL ETHNICITY, HERITAGE or WHAT?

Immigration reform is more than just installing a "religious test" for immigration, like banning Muslims. It's about looking for extremists regardless of religion.

It's not about keeping individuals from certain countries or religions out, but about looking at why they come here and what they do here.

It's about putting those who want to legally immigrate and go through the proper steps in front of those that don’t. Those that do go through the proper procedures, should be given preference to be allowed to live here and accept the more vigorous scrutiny of their circumstances. It's about if they should be allowed to live here. If they want to live here, they should want to belong here. They should want to assimilate into the society of law-abiding citizens that live here. They should want to accept our culture, even if it interferes with theirs. They should be allowed to bring in those parts of their culture that don't interfere with ours. They should want to speak our language and help us to understand theirs.

Not everyone who is here illegally is a bad person who has a violent or criminal behavior; many are hardworking individuals with a moral upbringing. They aren't all into theft, drugs, and violence, but the good ones should not be given preference over those who legally go through the proper procedures, and those who are born here should only be given citizenship if one of the parents is already a citizen.

It appears that the many religions have the same view of God, but differ in interpretations of the words of God. It's interesting that the words and ideals attributed to God are essentially the same, before religious inflection is applied to them.

I think I heard that God will accept anyone in heaven if they repent, but I could be wrong about that, it may depend on which religious leader I ask.

What's most interesting is that if you convert from one religion to another, it doesn't make a difference which one, you most likely aren't going to Heaven, but it might keep you out of Hell and at least with one religion it may keep you from being killed.

Are we teaching our children to respect authority or reject authority? Is that a biblical teaching regardless of which religious tome you read?

It’s ok to question authority, but if your only action when confronted with those in authority is to provoke a reaction to a perception, either real or imagined, by causing a violent act in defiance of authority, then who was your teacher and what were they teaching?

We can’t all get along together if we don’t try to get along together and not act like a thug or criminal and disrespect any act of authority.

If you want to be treated like a law-abiding person you have to act like a law-abiding person and let those who are videotaping the action help to prove the action was right or wrong.

In God We Trust; religion or amoral activism, not so much.

DON'T BE BLUE

Top 25 Radio Hosts

OK, I'm admittedly a conservative, sometimes called a Republican. Don't call me a Rightist and I won't call you a Leftist. Where do you get your news?
Left Right Left.

Here's the kicker. Liberal radio stations don't want to be called "Liberal", they call themselves "Progressive"?

NewsMax Top 25 Radio Hosts and I've listened to most of these at sometime and I doubt I've listened to more than 15 minutes of any one of these, they usually get to ranting about something after 10 minutes.

1. Rush Limbaugh is more than America’s most widely listened-to talk-radio host (“the most listened-to radio host on the planet,” he likes to say).
Take almost anything he says with a shot of JD, about 15% of anything he says is worth listening to and if he gets on a rant, which will usually happen about 2 minutes into a topic, change the station.

2. Bill O’Reilly has established himself as one of the nation’s top media personalities. Every week he finds occasions to agree with something a prominent Democratic politician has said, although O’Reilly has also remarked that “the Democratic Party has been hijacked by the far left.”
By that standard he will say something "Nice" about something from a Democrat about one in 5 times, again about 20%, but for the most part I consider about 40% of anything he says as worth listening to, until the ego trip.

3. Don Imus is the most curmudgeonly of America’s major talk hosts. Although "slightly" liberal, Imus’s sharp tongue slashes Republican and Democratic politicians alike.
He likes to rant a lot, which means I will change the station after about 5 minutes. Maybe 10% of anything he talks about is worth listening to.

4. Michael Savage is individualistic, iconoclastic, and eclectic; a passionate populist who sometimes sounds like a shock jock.
He yells a lot and may even start off in a rant about something which I don't care about! I usually can't listen to him for more than 5 minutes. Again about 10% of anything he talks about is worth listening to.

5. Sean Hannity is a talk host with a pugilistic demeanor who polarizes issues into contests between good guys in white hats and bad guys in black.
I can usually listen to him longer than others, I may have listened to him for more than 15 minutes at any one time, but not often. About 30% of anything he talks about is worth listening to.

6. Laura Ingraham, whose insider knowledge of government, droll humor, and feisty, fervent conservatism keeps her at the top of Conservative Talk Radio.
I can listen to her for about 15 minutes, or until she goes on a rant about her views on abortion. I can sometimes stand her for more than 15 minutes, but only about 20% of anything she talks about is worth listening to.

7. Glenn Beck’s relentless good humor can make important topics seem less urgent.
He can get into a "holier than thou" attitude, then it's change the station. I even have one of his books, about a Christmas Sweater. Again, usually 15 minutes is about all I can take, but about 25% of anything he talks about is worth listening to for me, until the God rant starts - and sometimes he starts with it.

8. Dr. Laura Schlesinger is seen as a cultural and political talk host because she — sin of sins — judgmentally asserts that some politically correct behaviors are wrong.
I think I've listened to her for more than 20 minutes and think about 30% of her topics are worth listening to.

9. Neal Boortz, “the talk master,” is America’s most popular Libertarian talk-show host.
I can take maybe about 2 minutes and less than 10% of what he talks about is worth listening to.

10. Al Franken, the brightest star of Air America Radio, is the left’s latest attempt to create its own Limbaugh.
They admit it's a Leftist radio station and host, not just liberal, which means right away it's over the top and extremely bent. Let's see, Minnesota had Jesse Ventura (R) as a governor and decided to tip the scales back to center with Al Franken (D) as a Representative in Congress. They overtipped. As soon as I hear his voice, I know about 2% of his topics would be worth listening to, for maybe 30 seconds.

11. Mike Gallagher a talk host in the Hannity style who sees right vs. left as right vs. wrong,
and as far as extreme views go, he's half right. I can actually stand him for about 20 minutes and think about 30% of his topics are worth listening to.

12. Erich “Mancow” Muller is known for his wild behavior. His show features a large cast of characters, adolescent pranks.
Not a serious show, so unless you really want to screw up your head, don't bother unless you're an airhead.

13. Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed “king of all media,” is a talk-radio superstar whose audience once rivaled Limbaugh’s.
A real shock jock with nothing worth listening to, again don't bother unless you're an airhead. 
OK, here's the deal, when is the last time you actually ate at a restaurant with a "B" rating? And Howard is a "C", at best.

14. Bill Bennett’s radio show, Morning in America, was launched in April 2004. On the air he often exhibits the patience and certitude of a priest.
5 minutes, tops, then that's it and about 10% worth listening to, if you can get past 5 minutes.

15. Opie & Anthony epitomize radio’s new “cringe” shock jocks.
Airheads only, couldn't get past 30 seconds.

16. Ed Schultz a converted “moderate” Republican is now a “progressive liberal.” Schultz describes himself as a “gun-totin’, red meat-eatin’ lefty” out to slay the “right-wing radio dragon.”
So, by his own definition, about 5% of his topics are worth listening to, for maybe 2 minutes, before he goes on a rant.

17. Michael Medved the self-described “cultural crusader on politics and culture” has always enjoyed debating politics.
Good for maybe 20 to 25 minutes max, about 25% of his topics are worth listening to.

18. Randi Rhodes is the main “hit man” at Air America Radio, the liberal network. She has been described as, “a chain-smoking bottle blonde. The Miami Herald says she's mostly, rude, crude, loud, brazen, gleefully scatological.”
Less credible than Al Franken or Keith Olbermann. 30 seconds max and nothing worth listening to.

19. Jim Bohannon describes himself as “a militant moderate”, soft-edged liberal.
Apparently he's retiring anyway.

20. G. Gordon Liddy has brought unique insights about government and the world, and convicted in the Watergate scandal.
I can actually listen to him and Oliver North for longer than most pundits.

21. Diane Rehm is one of the more moderate voices empowered by taxpayer-supported NPR.
But then again, NPR is 100% liberal, if not tipping too far to the left, so I don't listen to them.

22. Larry Elder is America’s pre-eminent libertarian-conservative African-American radio talk show host. He coined the term “Victicrat” to describe those who seek political power by claiming to represent victims of racism or poverty.
I can listen to him for 20 minutes or more and about 45% of his topics are worth listening to.

23. Michael Reagan’s radio show is a forum where Republican voices and conservative values come together.
The son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, he has a large legacy to live up to. He's also good for about 20 minutes.

24. Tammy Bruce is living with one foot at each end of the political spectrum, she has both conservative and liberal critics. She describes herself as “a pro-choice, gun-owning, pro-death penalty, openly gay, voted-for-President-Reagan progressive feminist Democrat”.
If she can stay on topic for 5 minutes, without the ego trip, I can listen to about 15% of her topics.

25. Tom Leykis, the poor man’s Howard Stern, used to focus on politics and boasted that his was the only radio show “not hosted by a right-wing wacko or a convicted felon".
Any reference to Howard would make me change the station, but I can actually take him for about 15 minutes on about 20% of his topics.

It's all about the business.

"Some of the progressive or liberal shows had just been sold to Al Jazeera. it's clear that the progressive community and its political leaders have simply not supported the format in the same way that the (conservative format) has. As someone who took substantial personal risk in syndication and station ownership, I can tell you that progressive talk has not panned out as a viable business. Air America's parade of management blunders produced the downward spiral that brought us to this tipping point for progressive talk radio, and most station owners, rightly or wrongly, see that failure as an indication that audiences won't support liberal talk radio."

 Peter B Collins, Truthout

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14355-an-insiders-view-of-the-progressive-talk-radio-devolution

DON'T BE BLUE

The 50 most popular liberal websites

OK, I'm admittedly a conservative, sometimes called a Republican.
Don't call me a Rightist and I won't call you a Leftist.
Where do you get your news?
Left Right Left.

Their list, not mine:
Newspapers are off the list for two reasons. Number one, people reading newspapers for reasons other than political content; Number two, since most newspapers lean to the left, they would have dominated the list.
These websites were ranked using Alexa Web Analytics.

 All 50 websites are listed with their Alexa rank following their link. So for example, a “1” would mean the page was the most popular website on the net. A “100,000” would mean the 100,000th most popular page on the net. With that being said, let’s go ahead and take a look at the rankings.
The number beside of each website represents its overall rank on the Internet.

1)  CNN: 52
2)  The Huffington Post: 393
3)  Time: 553
4)  NPR: 1,524
5)  Slate: 1,569
6)  Newsweek: 1,690
7)   U.S. News & World Report: 2,408
8)  Politico: 2,470
9)  Salon: 2,455
12) The Atlantic: 8,538
13) The Village Voice: 8,922
16) New Yorker: 12,429
17) The Daily Beast: 12,512
23) MoveOn: 21,786
24) Mother Jones: 22,277
25) Amnesty International: 23,807
27) The Nation: 24,552
28) Antiwar: 24,799
32) Planned Parenthood: 28,207
33) Information Clearing House: 28,605
37) Political Wire: 34,698
39) ACLU: 37,195
40) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: 37,494
41) Media Matters: 37,650
44) Drudge Retort: 41,472
45) The American Prospect: 42,082
46) Harper’s Magazine: 42,659
47) Firedoglake: 42,836
48) TruthDig: 44,389
49) Wonkette: 45,704
50) AmericaBlog: 45,195

Honorable Mentions

51) FiveThirtyEight: 46,521
52) The Washington Monthly: 48,238
53) Michael Moore 48,918
55) Air America: 54,928
58) Center for American Progress: 58,713
59) The Brookings Institute: 61,302
60) Zmag: 65,741
http://rightwingnews.com/top-news/the-50-most-popular-liberal-websites/#ixzz43mb7ZOOy

DON'T BE BLUE

The 100 Most Popular Conservative Websites Of 2015

OK, I'm admittedly a conservative, sometimes called a Republican.

Don't call me a Rightist and I won't call you a Leftist.

Where do you get your news?
Left Right Left.

Their list, not mine:
Newspapers are off the list for two reasons. Number one, people reading newspapers for reasons other than political content; Number two, since most newspapers lean to the left, they would have dominated the list.

These websites were ranked using Alexa Web Analytics.

The number beside of each website represents its overall rank on the Internet.




1) Fox News: 212
2) Wall Street Journal: 294
3) Independent Journal Review 341
4) The Drudge Report: 635
5) Western Journalism: 819
6) New York Post: 870
7) The Blaze: 1045
8) Breitbart: 1,533
9) WorldNetDaily: 2,500
10) Conservative Tribune: 2,555
11) Newsmax: 2,622
12) Young Conservatives: 2972
13) Infowars: 3,133
14) Top Right News: 3,203
15) The Washington Times: 3,241
16) The Daily Caller: 3,328
17) National Review: 4,379
18) Rare: 5,159
19) Real Clear Politics: 5,617
20) PJ Media/Instapundit: 5,799
21) TownHall: 6,643
22) Investor’s Business Daily: 6,930
23) Hot Air: 7,136
24) The Washington Examiner: 7,372
25) Reason: 7,882
26) The Washington Free Beacon: 8,176
27) Qpolitical: 8,564
28) Twitchy: 8,783
29) The Weekly Standard: 9,124
30) Cybercast News Service: 9,154
31) Free Republic: 10,125
32) Right Wing News: 10,545
33) Chicks On The Right: 11,575
34) Newsbusters: 12,674
35) Mad World News: 13,110
36) The American Thinker: 13,279
37) The Gateway Pundit: 14,301
38) The Tea Party News Network: 14,928
39) Glenn Beck: 15,422
40) Freedom Outpost: 15,869
41) The Heritage Foundation: 15,991
42) Lifesitenews: 16,045
43) Buzzpo: 17,949
44) The Federalist: 17,512
45) The Federalist Papers: 17,759
46) Shoebat: 17,976
47) Power Line: 18,615
48) The Rush Limbaugh Show: 19,421
49) Lew Rockwell: 20,179
50) Watts Up With That? 21,357
51) Bizpac Review: 21,506
52) Redstate: 22,625
53) Life News: 22,747
54) Clash Daily: 23,254
55) Truth Revolt: 23,564
56) Lucianne: 23,856
57) Ace of Spades HQ/My Pet Jawa/Rhymes With Right: 24,253
58) Viral Buzz: 24,918
59) The Right Scoop: 27,873
60) Pamela Geller: 28,467
61) Front Page Magazine: 30,367
62) Universal Free Press: 31,314
63) Tell Me Now: 31,221
64) Weasel Zippers: 32,545
65) Louder With Crowder: 30,631
66) Jihad Watch: 33,200
67) Mr. Conservative 33,894
68) American Conservative: 33,952
69) RedFlagNews: 35,048
70) The Ludwig von Mises Institute: 35,700
71) Freedom Outpost: 36,794
72) The Cato Journal: 37,900
73) Taki’s Magazine: 40,558
74) Joe For America: 44,530
75) Legal Insurrection: 45,079
76) Steyn Online: 46,174
77) The American Spectator: 49,116
78) American Enterprise Institute: 49,548
79) Personal Liberty Digest: 49,747
80) Allen West: 49,872
81) Commentary: 49,515
82) Bad Blue: 49,522
83) Three Percenter Nation: 50,012
84) The New American: 54,502
85) Judicial Watch: 59,172
86) Washington Weekly News: 62,691
87) Althouse: 66,030
88) Daily Paul: 66,851
89) Bill O’Reilly: 67,480
90) GOP.com: 67,749
91) Canada Free Press: 68,023
92) Human Events Online: 68,967
93) Jewish World Review: 76,215
94) GOPUSA: 71,293
95) Ricochet: 71,358
96) Day by Day: 73,755
97) Numbers USA: 76,280
98) Vox Day: 76,816
99) X Tribune: 76,417
100) City Journal: 84,176
http://rightwingnews.com/john-hawkins/the-100-most-popular-conservative-websites-of-2015/#ixzz43md12DPH

DON'T BE BLUE

Civility has been lost, in Politics and Sports

Former Yankees star reliever and current spring training instructor Goose Gossage has shaken Western democracy by denouncing players — home-run bat-flippers, pitching-mound chest-pounders, and the like. 

So the Yankees brought Gossage in for a chat?

Gossage, as per my understanding, said, “Let’s keep some sport in our sport. Bad losers can reasonably be explained and indulged. Bad winners? No way.”

Among the most commonly asked questions by fans who were raised to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad and winning baseball from everything less, has become, “How do managers allow that stuff?”

Baseball players are not the only fools who parade their incivility in this unsportsmanlike manner. Football players ,both American and European, but mostly American Football players, are the most egregious. Basketball is not quite as bad as Baseball or Football, but there is lots of disrespect shown between players in most team sports. Hockey may be the worst in teaching unsportsmanlike behavior to our children, as far as encouraging unsportsmanlike conduct on the ice by allowing fights between players, but Football and Baseball and Basketball are more watched by our impressionable youth.
It appears that most team sports are a parade of fools. 
http://nypost.com/2016/03/14/goose-gossage-absolutely-right-to-call-out-mlb-showboaters/

Civility has been lost, in Politics and Sports.
And it all starts with how they are brought up.
Being respectful and civil in your social interactions and accomplishments was encouraged as a young participant in school as well as play. It's not being taught by parents or teachers anymore. Generation X and Millennial children are seriously lacking in Civility.

The disruptive conduct of protesters at presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rallies is the latest evidence that protesting in a civil manner is not the hallmark of the current electoral campaign. The protesters were bent on causing as much disruption as possible, mostly physical. In Ohio a protester was apprehended when he approached Trump on stage, perhaps intent on inflicting physical harm to the candidate. 

This protester was an anarchist with blogs and Facebook pages showing his hate for America in his words and actions by stomping on the American Flag. It was later learned that his mother is an extreme left wing protester advocating socialism, his father is a preacher.

Other candidates have faced less physical confrontation, but their opponents’ vocal catcalls have disrupted their efforts to speak to their supporters. “Black Lives Matter” advocates have been particularly disruptive, most notably at a Bernie Sanders event. 

It's interesting that the Democratic supporters that demonstrate at Republican events have the most violent outcomes, while the Republican supporters at the Democratic events have not shown any violence. 

If protesters want to attend the rallies of candidates they don’t like, they can do so in a peaceful, non-disruptive manner while still making their point. Years ago a group of protesters quietly took seats in the front row at a speech by someone they opposed, holding opposition signs clearly visible to the speaker and television news cameras. There was no disruption, but the speaker was aware of their protest throughout his presentation.

Why can’t the citizens of a nation whose First Amendment is a protection of free speech honor the right of their opponents to practice that right without harassment? 

It appears to me that the Left wing can't get their voice heard without resorting to violence, even when they demonstrate against other Democrats, at Democratic events.

George Washington Carver ~ "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy has been going around for quite a while. It represents an idea that creates much opposition from the extreme ends of the spectrum. On one side you have the people who want to place limitations on recent events affecting society, or even past events. On the other you have people who do not want any limitations on those aspects of society affected by the events. Both can be right or wrong, depending on which side you are standing.

The Poisonous M&Ms Analogy goes something like this.
Someone says that you can have a whole bag of M&Ms, not a small bag, but the big party bag with 1000 M&Ms in it, but warns you that 1% of them are poisoned. Do you want to still have the free bag of M&Ms? (the actual scenario used 10%, but I feel that's much too high)

The analogy usually refers to something that is certainly meant to stir the emotions when it is referring to a minority of ideologies, like race, religion, ethnicity or any other defining notion.

There's the side believes that treating them all as suspect is validated by not wanting to eat an M&M from a bag were some of them are poisonous. The other side believes it can be used to prop up any kind of harmful stereotype about groups, such as genders, ethnicities, religious and political communities without having to engage the objections to unfair generalizations.

So we should just do away with all of the laws we've made in the past because they are unfair to people who want to commit a crime against innocent people.

The bottom line is this.
We have laws for a reason and the underlying reason is that a minutely small number of a given population has performed an unjust act on the rest of the population with something harmful, like death, in the beginning. It escalated to other less offensive acts that may not have killed anyone, but hurt the physically or financially. If we knew who they were, we wouldn't need the law, but they are hidden among us and acting like us and society is forced be reactive instead of proactive.

Now we are back to the Poisonous M&M Analogy. What if half of the poisonous ones were green, but only about 40% of them. Now you could throw out all of the green ones, but still have .5% poisonous, that’s about 4 out of say 800.

Here's the part they didn't tell you. If you do eat one of the poisonous ones, everyone standing next to you would also die and everyone within 10 feet of you would end up in the hospital, kind of like a virus. Now you have the bag of M&Ms, what do you do with them?

Of course all of the Skittles are free to eat, but what about the green ones?

DON'T BE BLUE

Consequences => Choices

When I was learning to take tests, one of the benchmarks of taking tests was that anything with "All" in it, was false. Not so when it comes to the choices you make and the consequences that result. All choices have consequences!

Choices have 6 stages, related to the 5 senses plus one, which really could be plus 2 if you insert intuition.
Any or all of these could be involved in the consequences of the choices you make.
The first is just thinking about it. The more you just think about it, the more likely one of the 5 senses will come into play. But just thinking about it could be the point of no return in regards to the consequences that could result. Part of thinking about a choice could be effected by your intuition about the consequences, but intuition may not become cognizant until one of the 5 senses kicks in.

Any of the 5 senses could be the trigger to making the choice.
Smell and sight could be the first stage depending on which one becomes the one which jolts your mind, or hearing the known or unknown sound, or even the lack of sound.
A reflex action of touching something, the interaction of taste and smell because taste is largely dependent on smell.

The consequences though are time insensitive. The consequences of the choice you make could be instantaneous or not realized until after you die.
The quicker consequences are realized as being either good or bad or neither, the easier it is to change or reverse them if desired. The longer it takes to determine if it is good or bad, the less likely they can be changed or reversed. Most people just learn to live with consequences that don't cause them physical harm.

The point of No Return is the defining point of consequences. The point of no return doesn't usually start in an instant, it builds until turning back has escaped the thought process or the consequence has reached the tipping point of disaster and good consequences don't have a tipping point, they just are. Beyond the point of no return lies truth and the understanding that the sign posts along the way were missed.

I know you'll come back home Dorothy, when your return from OZ.




 DON'T BE BLUE 

Media news bias is ratings driven

Just another reason I rarely watch "Prime Time News" or nationally syndicated news shows like 60 minutes, they bend the news to drive up ratings, in some cases they will just make it up.

Why are the major media outlets content to manufacture or bend the hot news stories in order to drive up ratings?
It's because of the mentality of the old saying, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission"! Unfortunately the bastardized news stories last for days or weeks, if not months, and the asking for forgiveness by broadcast media never happens, or in the case of printed news, it's relegated to the back pages or a footnote.

Trayvon Martin didn’t deserve to be lying mute in an underground box at the age of 17. Nobody does. He committed no offense to warrant such a fate. He was simply returning from the convenience store and chatting on his cell phone with his girlfriend , a scene that could be replicated a million times across America on any given evening. http://themoderatevoice.com/142893/pictures-and-prejudice-in-the-trayvon-martin-case/

Here’s all we know for certain about the killing of Trayvon Martin: George Zimmerman noticed the black teen wearing a hoodie while within the confines of the gated community, tailed him as a suspicious character, stepped out of his car to challenge him (despite instructions from police to keep on moving), exchanged words with Martin and they both ended up on the ground. Someone moaned for help around the moment that the gun went off, and Martin died on the spot.

Was the neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman out for blood or just taking his job a little too seriously? 

Why was the only picture used by ABC, NBC, CBS, the NY Times and every other major newspaper, from when Trayvon Martin was only 14 years old?
The contrasting photos of cute Trayvon and nasty George undoubtedly contributed to the call for vengeance.
Was the exposure on Zimmerman’s photo altered in some versions to make the half-Hispanic killer look “whiter”?
George Zimmerman is multi-racial. In fact, it’s been said that he has black relatives.

For most of the black community and the left-of-center crowd, it’s an open-and-shut case of a light-skinned racist murdering an innocent African American kid for the crime of “walking while being black.” The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showed up to make racial politics, just to add fuel to the fire. The fact that Trayvon was wearing a hoodie has catapulted that essential item of hip-hop apparel to unprecedented glory as a political symbol of unjustly maligned black youth. By now, every Trayvon Martin sympathizer and his brother has been photographed wearing a hoodie. Congressman Bobby Rush was even kicked out of a congressional hearing because he showed up wearing a hoodie. He was kicked out because he did not adhere to the dress code for appearing before congress. Dress code? 'That' is a subject for another day.

NBC altered the 911 call by Zimmerman to make it seem as if Zimmerman was race obsessed, and every news story used it as part of their coverage. 

Photographs, videos, and recordings can be indispensable clues, but our biases, conscious or not, have a way of tampering with the evidence.
Neither man was all saint or all villain. Both should be given an equal chance to be vindicated or judged by proper authorities.

NBC News has since fired the producer who was involved in the production of a misleading taped segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. On April 6th, 39 days after the maelstrom, it appeared as a blip in the news, but not on any prime time news broadcast.

The action came in the wake of an internal investigation by NBC News into the production of the segment, which strung together audio clips in such a way that made George Zimmerman’s shooting of Mr. Martin sound racially motivated. Ever since the Feb. 26 shooting, there has been a continuing debate about whether race was a factor in the incident.

Of course the damage has been done in the wake of a rioting public driven to the media frenzy,
 just as they wanted.

Sometimes you just can't help but be BLUE!

We all have two choices

This was emailed to me once and is one of my favorites.
This is a story about how we all should choose to start our days.

Jerry's the kind of guy you'd like to hate: He's always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I'd be twins!"
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who followed him around from restaurant to restaurant, all because of his attitude - he was a natural motivator.

One day I asked Jerry, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all the time. How do you do it?"
Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today: You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood.
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood."

Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, and several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant:
He left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers shot him.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the shooting. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die.
I chose to live."

"The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a bossy nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied.
The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'"

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

How do you chose to start your day?

Have and AWESOME one

DON'T BE BLUE