Wildcat Guardians

The annual clean up of the Wildcat Creek through Kokomo has just been wrapped up. As usual, hundreds of pounds of trash including tires, mattresses, boxes, construction materials, and more were removed from the creek. How did they get there?DSCF2200 In a word: JERKS….. people who do not care about the environment. You know the type: the ones that throw cups, bags, and drink cans out the car window when finished with them.
The Wildcat Guardians have been at this for a long time; I am thinking decades. My recollection is this effort began in the early 1970’s shortly after the first Earth Day. The first event was sponsored by the Kokomo Tribune. I remember several days of slopping around in the creek gathering things that did not belong there.
This is one group that does not get the notice it should. The members are dedicated to making and keeping the Wildcat Creek as clean and user friendly as possible. Their desire is for the creek to be fun and safe for boating and even for fishing. They deserve all the help they can get.

Salvation Army Fiasco

There just has to be more news than the issue with the Director of the local Salvation Army. This whole matter should have been a couple of paragraphs on page 8.
Here we have a guy who in good faith, I think, needed to have some help in cleaning out the old Salvation Army building on North Washington Street. I suspect he could have gotten all the help he needed from volunteers for free if he would have just asked. But no, he wanted to get a bit of cash into the hands of some folks, many of whom needed a  chance to earn a few bucks. In addition, he provided lunch. Now he is the one who gets fried. Somehow this strikes me as petty and a crock.
The Salvation Army was not looking for part time or full time employees. They needed one day of help. I fully understand a complaint if there was to be some longer term employment as a prospect, but this? Give me a break.
And shame on the Tribune and the Perspective for making an enormous deal out of what was intended to be a good deed. The Salvation Army has done so much good for so many people over so many years in our community, it is time to put away the swords. The Salvation Army and its Director do not deserve the treatment given.
[Background: the Directory of the Salvation Army in Kokomo needed some help in cleaning out a store no longer in use in Kokomo on North Washington Street. He put out flyers about this and offered anyone who helped $25 for the day plus lunch. Several folks took the Director up on his offer and helped. Someone…. don’t know exactly who…. rang the bell on the Director alleging violation of federal wage and hours law requiring minimum wage for all hours worked. The Director was suspended by superiors. The Kokomo Tribune and the Perspective made this page one, above the fold more than one day.]

Indiana's Religious Freedom Act

Governor Mike Pence must think us to be stupid. His comments that the just signed “Religious Freedom” act is “not about discrimination” do not hold water. There can be only one reason for this incredibly bad legislation and that is “discrimination”. The fundamental Christian folks have been at it again. They don’t like gays and lesbians and don’t like same-sex marriages. If you want a clue about who supports this discrimination, just take a look at the invited guests to the governor’s private signing ceremony for the bill.
State Representative Sheila Klinker had it right when she wrote to her constituents, “SB 101 is designed to allow private businesses to discriminate against people with whom they disagree based on religious beliefs. More specifically, they are supporting the bill so that private businesses can refuse service to members of the [gay and lesbian] community and people who have consummated same-sex marriages.”
Before this all gets sorted out and more-than-likely thrown out by the courts, Indiana is the loser. Already several conventions have suggested they will not now come to Indiana which will be the loss of millions in revenue to the state. Even the NCAA is thinking about the implications. Companies like Lilly & Company and Cummings Inc. are not happy either.
So, nice going Indiana General Assembly and Governor Pence. Indiana has too often been labeled in negative ways. We just added one more to the list.
 

Nimrud Falls

Most of us have little knowledge of Nimrud, Iraq. This was a major Assyrian city between about 1250 BC and 610 BC. Before all of the conflict in Iraq going back now more than a decade, Nimrud was a treasured archeological site that gave the world a glimpse to life more than three thousand years ago. The city and its present day ruins gave very important artifacts telling the story of early civilization. Nimrud
Now Nimrud is gone. The insane ISIL radical Islamists decided Nimrud is “un-Islamic”. The result is bulldozers and sledge hammers have now destroyed this treasure. This is much like the Taliban destroying treasured Buddhist artifacts in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Radical Islamists want to reset the clock to the present with denial that any history preceded the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate.
The world must wake up to the fact we are in a religious war; like it or not. The goal of the enemy is the overtaking of all civilization on planet Earth. Nothing else is sacred or safe. There may be over 3,000 miles of ocean between the United States and the Middle East, but we are not safe from this insanity. Our borders are open. It is only a matter of time before some catastrophe befalls us. Our leaders are not taking the actions needed to eradicate ISIL and protect the USA. A good first step would be to secure our borders.
And contrary to the answer the Obama administration gives, economic development and jobs, the answer is massive firepower and scorched earth where ever the radical Islamists are. They give no quarter and we should not either.

Ms. Clinton's Baggage

Indeed! Hillary Clinton has really done it now. If Benghazi was not enough, there is now the email. Seems Ms. Clinton believes she is a rule maker unto herself. She commands all within the US State Department to use official email addresses when conducting official government business, then she exempts herself and routes hers through only her personal server somewhere in the basement of her home. If known before, this should have been

More to Come
More to Come

grounds for dismissal! There simply is no excuse good enough to justify this behavior. It put the country at risk. The only ….. repeat, only…. reason for sending emails only through her personal server was to later be the only one able to edit, censor, and delete those one does not want to become part of the official record and possibly public. There is no other reason and this one is unacceptable. The Benghazi House Committee should pursue this as intensely and vigorously as legally possible. Hillary Clinton must not be allowed to skate on this as she attempted to do with her lack of proper decision making about the Benghazi consulate. Those got people killed.
And where, too, are the watchdogs? People in the State Department and the Whitehouse had to know where Clinton emails were coming from. That information shows in every email received. Even dummies know that. No one raised questions, it appears, at any point in the time Clinton was the Secretary of State. This is yet another example of complete incompetence and lack of courage on the part of those in the Obama administration.
Who knows what yet will be revealed. The problem is that no one will ever know completely what was on the Clinton personal servers. Even if the servers were confiscated immediately by the FBI or Justice Department, the “editing” could well have already been done.
The bottom line is that Ms. Hillary Clinton is unfit to be the President of the United States. Remember that.