I have to admit I was not one of the 98,000 votes to “Like” Walmart. I just couldn’t bring myself to go to Walmart’s Facebook site let alone click the “Like” link once I got there. I do understand as Nancy Voitus said that some things are really needed in our area and the money brings an incredible opportunity. I just happen to believe more the part of her quote that says that we need to be more creative. Yes we need to help the poor and hungry but instead of temporarily being satisfied with feeding the poor how about we try to end poverty? The unemployed, children and the homeless are the first people we think about as being hungry. Today, people who earn minimum wage, those who can only find part-time work and the retired are also having a hard time making ends meet. Organizations like the Catholic Church and other churches that jumped on board to promote the $1 million in grants from Walmart are not helping the hungry and poor in the long run. They need to be creative as MS. Voitus said. The Catholic Church doesn’t have to be very creative to help end poverty it has only to look to one of the major themes of its Catholic Social teachings. That would be, the Preferential Option for the poor and vulnerable. The Preferential Option points out that the moral test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor. As for other Christian religions they could help by living the call of the Gospels to work to eliminate poverty, to speak out against injustice, and to promote the common good.

Given the Preferential Option and Gospels background anyone Catholic or any other Christian faith should have realized they were in bed with the Devil when they promoted “Liking” Walmart. Walmart/Sam’s Club doesn’t pay a livable wage, keeps people part-time so they don’t have to offer healthcare, discourages overtime, forced employees to work off the clock without pay, promotes men more than women and denies workers the right to unionize. These company policies make Walmart/Sam’s Club employees the working poor. It also entitles them to be eligible for many forms of public assistance. Because Walmart does not take care of its employees the federal and state governments (read taxpayers) are subsidizing Walmart for its substandard wages and benefits.  With so many of its employees in need of government support some larger Walmart stores actually have welfare offices in the store — for the people who work there. One Congressional study entitled “Everyday Low Wages” estimates that a single Walmart “employing” 200 people would cost taxpayers over $400,000 in added social spending. Walmart costs taxpayers an estimated $1 billion per year subsidizing low wages and benefits.

Conservatives throw around the term, “entitlements” when describing fellow Americans on welfare, getting Social Security or Medicare. Who are biggest welfare cheats that demand their corporate welfare “entitlements” and have communities and legislatures throw all manner of tax breaks and subsidies at them? That would be corporations like, Walmart/Sam’s Club. The $1 million that Walmart gave the Youngstown area was not a donation. It was our own tax dollars coming back to us and a mere drop in the bucket of what they have stolen from taxpayers at that. I don’t even have the time and space to talk about Walmart’s sweatshops, destruction of mom and pop stores, exporting manufacturing jobs, environmental issues etc. Suffice to know that Walmart is on the wrong side of every social justice issue that you can think of. That alone should have any church or honest organization refusing to have anything to do with them.

I know I’m living in a dream world when I believe justice should always prevail. If justice would have prevailed in this Walmart Initiative the Catholic Church, other churches, Trumbull Mobile Meals and Second Harvest Food Bank would have won the money and then given it back. Then they would have made a statement that corporation like Walmart/Sam’s Club are not part of the solution but a major part of the problem of poverty and hunger. Heck, I’d have been ecstatic if our local organizations that got the money would have kept it and said it is just some of the corporate welfare money that our local communities’ taxpayers paid out to the local Walmart and Sam’s Clubs to locate here anyway. I don’t see any hypocrisy in taking the money and still pointing out that Walmart/Sam’s Club are bad fellow citizens. The Supreme Court declared them fellow citizens so it should be pointed out they helped export jobs to China, then filled their shelves with Chinese goods they want us to buy. That makes them a double-crosser and a betrayer in other words a traitor. They should be in court being charged with treason or at least boycotted for being disloyal to this country.

If the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches really believed in the Gospels concerning the poor they would be outside of these big box corporate welfare queens with picket signs demanding jobs that pay a fair wage that includes healthcare for employees. A recent study showed that paying a fair wage would only result in a price hike of around 1 percent for Walmart shoppers. The researchers noted that the increase would be “well below Walmart’s estimated savings to consumers” – in other words, the big-box retailer could continue to offer “low prices” without impoverishing their workers. The study’s authors noted that the 1 percent price hike was the “most extreme estimate, as portions of the raise could be absorbed through other mechanisms, including increased productivity or lower profit margins.”

Let the truth be told Walmart is not a gift horse it is a Trojan Horse.

No franchise big box music here just local homegrown Kenny Greco: Say a Prayer

also Kenny with: All the Words I Can’t Say (check out some of the Youngstown background).

“More and more Americans are asking about the price that we have to pay when Walmart comes into a community, treats workers poorly, violates immigration laws and squashes small businesses.” ~ Anthony Weiner

Several dozen Fowler families celebrated this week as they signed the shale mineral rights away for their properties for deep-drilling. James Brumbaugh, president of Shale Investment Fund, said the 50 to 60 checks being given out could change the families’ lives significantly. The going rate is about $3,000 per acre. Richard (a minister) and Ida Faber his wife received a bonus check for $701,580 for leasing the mineral rights to 240 acres. “The real money comes when we get products out of the wells,” Faber said. As if $700,000 is not real money. Ninety-five year-old Frank Domjancic, received a check for more than $70,000, for his 24 acres. “This is something good for the Valley,” he said. “Hopefully these leases and the resulting drilling will bring jobs,” said Anita Goodhart. “I would like my children to be able to get jobs here and stay here,” she added. Troy Mollohan plans to sign deep-drilling leases for at least 40 acres and possibly more, he said. “I haven’t heard anything bad from anyone in the community about this drilling,” Mollohan said. “Everyone I’ve talked to is happy about it.” Are his neighbors geologists or EPA workers? One minute of research on the computer and Mollohan would have read about the towns these companies ruined. Ironically Mollohan took a check on Wednesday the very same day Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the nation’s first state ban on fracking. One would have thought Mr. Mullohan would have got some seat of his pants research Christmas Eve and again on New Year’s Eve when earthquakes, measuring 2.7 and 4.0 on the Richter scale, happened in Youngstown. Had he picked up a local newspaper he could have read, “A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said.” There is a ton more facts he could have found out about the dangers associated with drilling by the oil & gas industry if he cared more about his community’s safety than about money.

As for the jobs coming to the area that Goodhart and Domjancic expect don’t hold your breath. An analysis of the local economic effects of natural gas drilling in shale concluded that it offers few jobs to local residents because the industry requires a relatively small workforce. Oil and gas is a typical “boom and bust” business so local jobs are usually temporary. The oil and gas industry employs specialized workers who travel from well site to well site and do not stay long in any one place.  Carrizo Oil & Gas now has an office in Vienna I often pass. I can tell you I’ve seen their parking lot have as many as thirty cars in it. The plates on the cars are from: Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama with no Ohio plates to be found. I suppose the local Vienna economy is benefiting to some degree with all these Southerners working here temporarily. I expect to soon go in the local IGA grocery store and see fresh okra and crawfish. The Yankee Kitchen Restaurant will I suppose be serving grits, catfish, hushpuppies and sweet tea. Once that happens locals will be calling it Confederate Kitchen. We also need to ask if we want jobs at the risk of our environment. I remember hearing that the mayor’s of towns under German occupation promoted the building of Nazi concentration camps as jobs, jobs jobs.  Not a legacy I’d want to have my community known for.

While the cash will change those who took the checks it quite possibly could change the Fowler/Vienna area by putting the communities citizens in danger of heavy noisy truck traffic, chemical spills, radioactivity, earthquakes, pipeline explosions, fires, contamination, pipeline ruptures, water and air pollution, release of toxic natural gas and other environmental hazards. Then there is the cancer risk as hydraulic fracturing fluids contain dozens of toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, biocides, ethylene glycol, and hydrochloric acid, chemicals which have known to cause cancer. Studies on economic benefits funded by the oil & gas industry don’t even factor in the high costs communities end up paying in road and bridge repairs, declines in farming and tourism revenue, and reduced property values and property tax revenues. Even after the oil & gas companies have taken all they want and capped the wells there is a failure rate of 16.7%, meaning approximately one in every six abandoned wells will leak into the surrounding area.

 It is also ironic that the company handing out the checks in Fowler was Shale Investment Fund from Pittsburgh, PA. Pittsburgh along with, Quebec, Morganstown, Buffalo, North Rhein Westphalia (Germany) and Christchurch in New Zealand (which suffered a recent devastating earthquake)  have also banned fracking.  This is the list of cities the check takers can afford to safely move to if Trumbull County ends up with toxic air and water, an earthquake,  radioactivity or cancer outbreak. A commenter on Vindy.com known as, UticaShale has been verbally attacking anyone who says we need to go slow and cautiously with this shale drilling. He recently said, “No wonder why Youngstown is the armpit of Ohio, here are two examples. Thank God oil was discovered here, the local entitles can’t produce a product. When all of us energy workers really get going up here, I will smile when we put the entitled takers in the pipe ditches experiencing work for once in their lives.” The entitled aren’t someone on unemployment or welfare the entitled are the oil & gas companies that think they can ruin our land, water and health for money. If a corporate tool moron like UticaShale is any indication of the energy workers who are drilling wells we are in serious danger. The modern version of Judas’s thirty pieces of silver paid to sell Jesus out now translates into accepting $3,000 an acre to sell your neighbors out and even a minister has bitten.

Kris Kitco:  Frack That Oil

David Rovics: No Fracking Way

]]> http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/boom-town-or-kaboom-town/feed/ 2 elecpencil http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/boom-town-or-kaboom-town/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Elecpencil/~3/nqQAR5N-9a0/ http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/slavery-polygamy-concubinage-and-incest-are-biblic-family-values/#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:21 +0000 elecpencil http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/?p=2990 Continue reading →]]> The Youngstown Vindicator’s headline on Thursday May 10 read, “It’s been slow, but it’s progress.” Underneath that it said, “Couple with Valley ties applauds Obama’s support of same-sex marriage.” There also was a photo of former Youngstowners Glorianne Leck and her partner Susan Savastuk. They both now live in Bloomington, Indiana. I attended a going away event for Glorianne and Susan before they moved. They were both activist that you could count on to be specialists at fighting any social injustice happening in our valley. I hate seeing activist who don’t know the meaning of the word surrender leaving our valley. Instead of specialist fighting for a better community we are left with spectators who do nothing but bitch but won’t get off their ass. You know the complainers to Vindy.com and the radio-talk show callers like that do nothing Bob from Ausintown I talked about on my last post. If I were to create a utopia I’d trade a 100 Bob’s from Austintown for every Glorianne and Susan. I guess I should admire the fact that Bob is able to call several radio-talk shows everyday despite the fact he is in a straight jacket. Last post I talked about how callers to Ron Verb’s talk show trashing inmates didn’t know that Jesus said to visit those in prison and care for them as you care for him.. This week the callers mentioned how Jesus damned gays which of course is not in the Bible.

In the article Glorianne said, “Attitudes about same-sex marriage are changing and the president’s statement mirrors that.” I would tend to agree with Glorianne but I realize some people are still living in the 15th century. Those would be people like Pastor Kenneth Donaldson of Rising Star Baptist Church on the city’s East Side. In the Vindicator’s article he said the president’s comments haven’t changed his opinion. “It does not surprise me one iota. It doesn’t surprise me because he’s always supported [same-sex marriage.] That’s why I never voted for him,” he said. “The Catholic Church has been very clear in its position on same-sex marriage, said Monsignor Robert Siffrin of St. Edward Parish. “We are very concerned about supporting family and traditional marriage because of the good that we see that comes from it. We’re not taking a stand against anyone; it’s a stand for marriage and family life,” he said. Since the Catholic Church has commented I’ll change my opinion that it is not 15th century thinking that is against same-sex marriage but 14th century. I wonder if Monsignor Siffrin explains how 50% of those traditional marriages end in divorce and if he sees good coming from that.

Online at Vindy.com 14th century thinker LoserNeverWin says, “I hope all the gays Burn In hell! GOD never planned it that way; otherwise Adam would have been having sex with John!” I’d ask Loser, “Did you know Adam and Eve’s children married one another?” They had to marry their own brothers or sisters because there was no one else around for them to marry. Marrying your brother or sister is against our modern cultural values. The words in scripture have not changed but our cultural perceptions and our family values have changed. Bible scripture calls Abraham “the friend of God. Abraham had multiple wives and concubines and had an incestuous marriage with his half-sister, Sarah. Yet, Christians today hold up Abraham as an example of faith. I could go on forever about such practices in the Bible that certainly wouldn’t be considered acceptable by Christian’s today even though God doesn’t speak against them in the Bible.

The claims by today’s Bible thumpers that they are upholding family values seems ignorant of the family values in the Bible they profess to believe. Same sex marriage expresses the willing desire of gay men and lesbians to settle down, and embrace faithful, monogamous relationships. That is pretty tame compared to all that slavery, polygamy, concubinage, levirate marriage and incest that God had no problem with in that holy book know as the Bible. I had a conservative tell me that if gays can marry what is stopping men from marrying sheep. I had a suspicion all along that the only thing stopping conservative men from marrying sheep was the mere fact that there is a law against it. I am generally an animal rights activist but if marrying a sheep will make angry white men conservatives a little less angry and a bit more human than I’ll support their effort to marry sheep.

I recently got confirmation that supporting same-sex marriage is the right thing for everyone to do. I realized that because of an e-mail I got from one of my blog readers. He informed me about something that Traci and Jeff from, ‘Traci and Friends” on WSOM radio said. They said that God sent Hurricane Katrina to destroy New Orleans because the city was going to have a gay parade. I knew that Traci and Jeff were angry morons but now I realize they are the local personification of evil (which they share with Warren Tribune editor, Frank Robinson).

Glorianne and Susan I hope this finds you well and I hope in the near future we come into the 21st century and legalize same-sex marriages.We certainly miss you in Youngstown.

Times are changing: Republican mayor reverses his stand against gay marriage.

Marriage Equality Song: Waiting All My Life

“I saw with so many of the gay couples, they were so devoted to another. I saw so much love. When this hearing was over, I was a changed person in regard to this issue. I felt that I understood what same-sex couples were looking for.” — Maryland state Del. Wade Kach (R), Feb. 23, 2012, telling reporters how meeting with gay couples led him to vote to legalize gay marriage in the state.

Now my blood pressure is up over something I heard on WKBN’s “Ron Verb Show.” I turned the radio to WKBN  Friday afternoon in my car as I was on the turnpike for a few hours. Ron Verb and his callers were bashing my friends, Attorneys Staughton and Alice Lynd. They had in the past filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the Supermax prisoners that led to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections to use a due-process procedure in assigning inmates to Ohio State Prisons and in the decision to keep them there. The Lynds reported to the media that they received a telephone call from an OSP inmate they know late Wednesday, during which the inmate said about 48 of his fellow prisoners were taking part in a hunger strike. The hunger striker demands are lower commissary prices, an end to a ban on books and music, the opportunity to earn more recreation and out-of-cell time through good behavior and programs to teach them trades and help them cope with sensory deprivation linked to 23 hours of solitary confinement daily. The Lynds wanted to make sure the media knew about the hunger strike that the prisoners have decide to do on their own as a direct action.

Ron was attacking the Lynd’s as were all of his callers. Daily caller, Bob from Austintown called the Lynds the worst thing in his book, “Activists.” Bob could never be called an activist because he is too lazy to get off his ass and do anything. Bob spends his day calling and bitching on every local talk show on WKBN radio. In between he calls radio talk shows at WNIR in Akron, KDKA in Pittsburgh, WTAM in Cleveland and several more. You’ll recognize Bob as he will call politicians, activists or whoever he wants to spill his illogical venom at, “clowns.” Bob is like lots of talk radio callers and like the people who comment at Vindy.com and the Trib.com angry assclowns who do nothing but tear down other people who are trying to make a better community for all. Callers to Verb bashing Staughton and Alice said, “What kind of people are these two who only care about criminals and not about the victims of crime?” Since I was driving on the turnpike and won’t drive and talk on the cell phone I will answer that question here. The Lynds care about prisoners because of their membership in a tiny group of people in these United States. That group is called, Christians. They follow a book called, the Bible that say things like Matthew 25:40, “And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, In as much as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.” Matthew 25:35, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Hebrew 13:3, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”

The Lynds are not as one-dimensional as the callers to WKBN. They can care for those in prison and still care about the victims who were harmed, mistreated or killed by the prisoners. The Lynds have been “activists” for the civil rights of African-Americans, the end to wars that affect us all; for the rights of workers and to help retired workers get the health care and pensions they worked hard for. In other words they have fought for decades for all the social justice issues that are talked about in the book so many own but have never read called, The Bible. The Lynds aren’t Bible thumpers like many people who call themselves Christians. They are real Christians as they live the Bible. We need more people like the Lynds who are more than one-dimensional. They have found the true path in life involves extending your hand to pull all people up. The Bob’s from Austintown of the world do nothing but act as potholes on that path to a better world. Let’s work toward patching those potholes for our children’s future.

FOX NEWS Theme: Yes We Klan

The Avette Brothers: The Ballad of Love and Hate

Head Full of Doubt

“Just about every year, Congress passes another crime bill – spending billions of dollars to build more prisons, to place more band-aids on society’s scars.” ~ Carrie P. Meek

The thing that shocks me is for Theodore to call anyone a “piece of shit.” Theodore Anthony’s life has been one shitload of crap after another. When Theodore was called up to serve in Vietnam he was shitting bricks. He decided he had to get his shit together and come up with a way to get out of serving in Nam. As he has said in various interviews over the decades, “I got 30 days’ notice of the physical, I ceased cleansing my body. Two weeks before the test I stopped eating food with nutritional value. A week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. My pants got crusted up.” This got Theodore out of being drafted which I’m sure did not please his drill Sergeant father.  Theodore now a days likes to think he is a patriot because he has concerts for U.S. troops. In 2004, he was in Iraq playing for U.S. soldiers. He got the opportunity to visit Saddam Hussein’s war room.  He stated, “It was a glorious moment. It looked like something out of Star Wars. I saw his gold toilet. I shat in his bidet.” He added, “Our failure has been not to Nagasaki them.” Of course if he had actually been a soldier he would have shit his pants the minute the troop carrier landed in Iraq.

Theodore is a conservative who has endorsed, Mitt Romney for president. That really is funny as you’d have to have shit for brains to want Theodore to endorse you if you are running as a candidate in the “family values” party. Theodore is a hypocritical sack of crap that has had the nerve to call out “hippies” for living an “irresponsible lifestyle of random sex.” Theodore Anthony has had two wives and has eight children, including three out-of-wedlock in two liaisons almost 30 years apart. Prior to his first marriage, Nugent fathered a boy, Ted and a girl, whom he gave up for adoption in infancy. The siblings were adopted separately and had no contact with one another. In 2005 he was involved in a legal battle for not paying enough child support for a child he had out-of-wedlock in 1995. In 1978, at the age of 30 he began a relationship with a 17 -year-old Hawaiian girl. Her parents signed documents to make Theodore her legal guardian, an arrangement that Spin magazine ranked in 2000 as #63 on their list of the “100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock. In a 1998 episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, Theodore admitted to being a serial pedophile. He celebrates his pedophilia in his song, “Jailbait” with the lyrics, “Well I don’t care if you’re just thirteen. You look too good to be true. Jailbait you look fine fine fine. I know I got to have you in a matter of time.”

Theodore Anthony thinks he’s tough shit because he’s a hunter. He owns a ranch near Jackson, Michigan where you can pay to hunt for bull bison ($5,000), Russian boar, or white-tailed deer ($1,000 each). Theodore has bought the animals so it is what people call a “canned” hunt. Theodore hates that term and prefers, “high fence hunting.” It is real bullshit hunting for old shits like, Dick Cheney. Theodore Anthony was busted for deer baiting during filming of his short-lived reality show and fined.

Theodore is one of those conservatives who have no use for “Big Government.” Guess who was one of the first musicians who ran scared shitless to “Big government” when websites like Rhapsody featured music that could be downloaded for free to fans? He needed the government’s help because he was up shit creek without a paddle. He hasn’t created any music people have wanted to buy in decades, so he wants to protect any money he might make on his oldies. Ted likes to think he’s some kind of working-class hero yet he told union Detroit Free Press workers to stop their strike and go back to work and the employer would pay what the market dictates. Yet when the music market is innovative and creates technology for consumers to download music for free he wanted “Big Government” to give a shit.

In the past Theodore has been criticized by people for making racist remarks and writing misogynistic songs. To those people I’d say, “No shit Sherlock that’s because he is a misogynist and a racist!” Now at the NRA conference he has said comments that many suggest are threats against President Obama. He was cheered for those comments by the shithead NRA members in attendance. He got himself in deep shit and was investigated by the secret service. He can’t say he was drinking and was shit faced as he has claimed for years he doesn’t drink or do drugs. He said he was just shooting the shit with NRA members. They cleared him when they realized he has been full of bullshit for years. The cowardly NRA has sensed the shit might roll downhill and they might end up in deep shit. To avoid the shit further hitting the fan they have scrubbed their website of Theodore’s speech at their convention. He has been dropped as an opening act in June at Fort Knox because of his public comments.

 If I was Mitt Romney and a shit for brains like Theodore Anthony Nugent gave me his endorsement I’d say, “Eat shit and die” and hope he’d get angry and endorse my opponent. Willard Mitt Romney already has enough problems with his shitty record as governor of Massachusetts and the way he treated people like shit when he was CEO of Bain Capital.

And that Dear Readers is the latest poop or all the shit that’s fit to print.

Wally Pleasant: The Day Ted Nugent Killed All of the Animals

Goldfinger: FTN

“Apartheid isn’t that cut-and-dry. All men are not created equal.” ~ Ted Nugent

Earth Day is April 22 so I think it is something we should reflect on. It started in 1970 and was created by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. He created the day after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The first Earth Day had over 20 million people participate.  It is now observed by more than 500 million people in 175 countries. It has become an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

The results of that first Earth Day helped set the United States on a path to protecting the Earth. We soon saw: The Clean Water Act, The Clean Air Act Extension, The Endangered Species Act, The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, Fuel Economy Standards for cars and several other environmental acts to protect the planet. Do you think everyone was happy with these acts for a better Earth? Wouldn’t you suppose corporations, the oil and gas industry, the tobacco companies, right-wing think tanks and the corporate toadies at the Chamber of Commerce would fight back? They did with the secret Powell Memo, lawsuits, lobbying, conservative appointments to an activist Supreme Court, propaganda and after decades total success with the Citizens United ruling that gave corporations personhood. I encourage you to go to this link which explains better than I can the history of where the infamous Citizens United decision came from and how we can fight to overturn it. I think it is one of the most important articles I’ve seen in a long time. I want to thank Rev. Ray for turning me on to Yes! magazine that had the article in it. I am including Yes! as a link on my blog under, “Well Worth Reading.” Happy Earth Day!

The Earth is My Church

From 1971 Freda Payne: Bring the Boys Home

After a visit to the beach, it’s hard to believe that we live in a material world.  ~Pam Shaw

You don’t see any homeless begging for money outside of any of the businesses. On the other hand outside the locally owned IGA grocery store the American Legion is selling their paper poppies. If they aren’t there it’s the high school band or pee wee football team collecting donations. The IGA’s owner/operators the Turners are good community folks who let the local schools organizations use their water supply to wash cars for fund-raisers in the parking lot. The Turners have a great wine and beer selection at their store. They carry my favorite beer, Straub and Mr. and Mrs. E’s favorite wines, New York’s Bully Hill, Sweet Walter’s Red and Ohio’s Chalet Debonne’s, River Rouge.  They have a great in store bakery and deli and a nice selection of meat. The town’s Chevrolet dealer closed up a few years ago but the other two parts of being an American apple pie and hot dogs can be found at the IGA. Until recently we had two hardware stores (one’s elderly owner died)  which makes us more of a hardware than software town. There is one doctor located in town and also my dentist. We are a town of churches having over half a dozen.

Vienna can get a little exotic as we do have Zebras, Camels, Water Buffalos, Ostriches, Llamas and Buffalo. Luckily, they are fenced in at Wagon Trails Animal Park. You won’t find such an assortment of animals anywhere else in Trumbull County. A note to hunters, Wagon Trails is a no hunting zone but a great place for school field trips.

We don’t have any strip clubs but we have a place where you might be strip searched. That would be the Youngstown Airport and the airbase which are both located in Vienna. The airport seems to be always struggling to get more flights out of it. Ridge Road is our enterprise zone which in capitalist speak means the area where businesses set up because they have hit the lottery know as taxpayer-funded, corporate welfare. I couldn’t tell you what business is in the few large structures on that road as they tend to leave after their tax abatements are up in search of new taxpayer suckers. We have a country club on Rt.193 that most of  Vienna’s citizens have not ever been at unless we were cutting their grass or washing their dishes. Near the country club is an exclusive neighborhood called, Creekside. Most of the lots these huge homes were built on cost more than the average person’s home in Vienna. Our children do not know the children that live here as these children go to fancy private schools in the Cleveland area like, Gilmore Academy.

I stop at the IGA after work to get a gallon of milk and the cashier informs me my wife just stopped and bought milk. When Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village to raise a child” (originally an African proverb) she was talking about, Vienna. Next door neighbors or any other parent from the community will tell you they saw your child driving too fast, not wearing a seat belt, smoking or cursing etc. They’ll also compliment you on some accomplishment your child has done in sports or academia. A number of years ago I was proud to have a new Vienna resident tell me my son was the first student to welcome their son to school and befriend him.

What I really want to say about living in a small town like this is how people come together in times of need. I remember how the community put on a local carnival to help with medical bills for a boy who had cancer and one hit by a car. My 92 year-old mother-in-law lives in Vienna also. Her neighbors have taken it upon themselves to snow plow her drive, take out her garbage and get her newspaper and mail. A number of years ago Mrs. E. became ill and my neighbors brought food, flowers, cards and got my kids on and off the bus.

These are the kinds of things people only think happened back in the 1950′s. I’m here to tell you they happen in small towns across this country today. When people see others in need I believe they want to help but don’t always know what to do. A good place to start is to ask these four little word of the person needing help, “What can I do?” You can also just do what you can. For example my neighbor who is retired has a snow plow on his garden tractor and plows out the neighborhoods drives during heavy snowfalls. At the end of your life which is more important things you saw or things you actually contributed to? I think people don’t want to be mere spectators in life but want to be participants. If people try it I think they will find that volunteering and participating is the highest form of nourishment. The people I like to hang out with all have heart problems. That problem is that they have bottomless pockets on their hearts which is the best kind of heart problem to have! Wouldn’t the best eulogy someone can say about you be, “He lessened the pains of the Earth.”

I may live on a dead-end street but I don’t have to have a dead-end view of the world. Look around and see how you can make your local community better and then keep broadening your size of community until it includes the entire planet. We’ll all be better for it.

Hal Ketchum: Small Town Saturday Night

Justin Moore: Small Town USA

“One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city — as I once did for a couple of years. Edward Abbey

This will show you the great humor my fellow Viennese have.

I could have flown but I don’t do airplane travel well and it is also costly. It is great to have technology like telephones and be able to text to stay in touch with loved ones. I know Americans like to think we are #1 in things but I have to tell you we are behind the world in transportation. If we had current transportation technology like one of these I could make it to see my son in about 1.5-2 hours tops! I would hope as more and more of our children move away to get jobs we will consider these high-speed trains that Europe and Japan have had for decades.

Of course it would be nice if our children could find work in communities near their parents. Our steel mills closed years ago causing people to move to find jobs. The next area boom job we had brought us from steel to steel bars. Those steel bars being prison bars as we had a private prison, a federal prison and a Supermax prison being the only thing offered our valley. Our valley’s children who wanted to make this area their home attended YSU seeking criminal justice degrees. We have a new opportunity to keep our children from going elsewhere to seek jobs. That is being provided by oil and gas companies who have come to our valley in an attempt to purchase and lease land for drilling. One such company, Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc. a Houston-based energy company has located its office at the end of my street. When they tried to locate in a Virginia county it’s residents stood up and said no to Carrizo. That county was worried about the environmental impact on the community. A lot of this drilling for natural gas is done by “fracking,” the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. People’s wells have become contaminated and the waste water from fracking can be extremely dangerous. According to the Endocrine Disruption Network, “25 percent of the chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer. Fifty percent can affect the immune, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.” New Year’s Eve in Youngstown was welcomed in with an earthquake. It was the area’s eleventh since D&L Energy began injecting drilling waste underground in December 2010.

I wish this new business was just the ticket to keep our children from having to leave this valley. I know some people aren’t concerned with any environmental impacts. They are just desperate to see their children be able to get a job and be near them. That I totally understand. Then we have those who are going to sell and lease their land and only care about making money. If worse comes to worse and this area turns into an environmental disaster they have made their money and can move anywhere they want. They will have escaped the disaster they helped to create as they leave those of us who can’t afford to move to suffer in their wake. The “drill, baby, drill!” conservative crowd somehow always thinks that the private sector can do no wrong. Do they really believe that corporations put people before profits? Have they forgotten about the tobacco industry, exploding Firestone tires, Pintos that turned into fireballs, lead paint, asbestos etc?

I suppose people think the EPA, elected officials, medical experts and government agencies are looking out for us so if fracking is happening around the country it must be safe. If you look close enough you’ll see officials who deal with complaints are being bought off, donations are buying co-operation with the gas and oil companies and laws have been passed to protect the companies from disclosing the dangerous chemicals they are using. Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction — but they won’t be able to share it with their patients. This law will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public. The oil and gas companies have already infiltrated the very folks that would protect us here in Ohio. A member of an Ohio commission that decides oil and gas-drilling complaints also gets a percentage of what the companies pay the landowners, when the deals are struck. See info here.

Then we have some of the creepy people involved in the gas and oil business. Ones like, Texas oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens. He is a major financier of natural gas exploration across the United States. If fracking destroys the water in this country Pickens has that covered.  You see, according to Business Week, “Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more.”  It’s a win-win situation for T. Boone. Pickens spent $2 million as the money man behind the Swift Boat political hate ads that attacked John Kerry when he ran for president in 2004. Then you have the Koch brothers the money men behind the Tea Party and several right-wing think tanks. Koch Pipeline Company LP, owns and operates 4,000 miles of pipeline used to transport oil and natural gas. In 2010, Koch Industries was ranked 10th on the list of top US corporate air polluters. From 1999 to 2003, Koch Industries was assessed “more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments.” The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than $300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone. Add in the local creeps who support the area’s bum rush to drill like, Frank Robinson editor of the Warren Tribune, Dan Rivers from WKBN and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber that all supported the SB5 attacks on public sector workers. Having these guys on board with fracking should give you some real pause to take a cautious slow approach to this new valley industry. These are folks who’d sell their mother for a dollar let alone protect our children.

I like most of our valley’s residents would love to see more jobs so our children can have opportunities here. The gas under our land isn’t going anywhere so I think we should slow down and spend some time investigating what the long-term costs to our valley is going to be. This mad rush to “drill, baby, drill!” just makes me think we are all being “swiftboated.” What parents want most for their families is health and safety so the number one issue should be, “family, baby, family!”

Fracking problems in Texas.

Ziggy Marley: Family Time

All Stars: We Are Family

“Pre-smokers”
Interesting term in 1973 draft paper, written by R. J. Reynolds’ research planning department.

]]> http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/family-baby-family/feed/ 0 elecpencil http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/family-baby-family/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Elecpencil/~3/JiFmfi9OYI4/ http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/a-pity-party-for-the-rich-and-appliances-for-the-poor/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:53:35 +0000 elecpencil http://elecpencil.wordpress.com/?p=2916 Continue reading →]]> Having one of those jobs where you can work at home must be great. The biggest expansion in home based jobs is being a corporate tool and lemming for the 1%. You see their right-wing letters to the editors in your local newspapers and opinions in the comment sections on political websites. You also hear their calls to CSPAN and local talk radio stations. Rush Limbaugh makes $33 million a year being a corporation shill, so you would hope the folks spreading the weekly corporate talking points would pick up a livable wage for their effort. I really can’t believe that folks in the middle-class would sell their soul to spread right-wing propaganda without a nice pay-day. I don’t believe anyone in the middle-class would actually be dumb enough to become a self-appointed guardian of the status quo.

The latest corporate tools have been employed to get the propaganda out about one of their corporate overlords, the poor oil companies (one of our new corporate persons) who they feel need to be worshipped and cherished for the wonderful job they do for a measly 6% profit. I heard a caller to a WKBN talk show the other day saying such to try and throw a pity party for the poor oil companies. Was I suppose to be so moved that I would empty out my credit union saving account, drive down to my local gas station hand over all my money, fall down on my knees and worship the gas gods who have been making record profits? If the oil companies are really only making 6% and want me to cry I’d say close up shop and invest in something else. The corporate tool callers talk about how corporations are locating in other countries because the U.S. corporate tax rate is too high. Why do the corporations even care what the tax rate is as Exxon, GE and 85% of the top 100 US companies pay $0 in taxes? Add in that corporations like Big Oil get incredible subsidies (read corporate welfare) courtesy of the taxpayers. Big Oil is also subsidized by the fact that the US military goes to war for it to secure investments while taxpayers donate their money and children as cannon fodder. Corporations don’t pay taxes: they collect them by using taxpayers as ATM machines. How did oil company’s profits become more important than the needs of the people? That is because the oil industry spent $1.15 billion in lobbying over the span of 14 years. That’s quite a bit for the oil industry that  claims to make a mere 6% profit.

The other propaganda I keep hearing from the corporate tools is that the U.S.’s poor are better off that the poor of any other nation. Will this soon become a rallying chant? I can see Romney (who said he wasn’t concerned with the poor) having a political ad showing the homeless of  say Boston wrapped in three beat up coats in heavy snow jumping up and down with their index fingers in the air chanting we’re number one, we’re number one.  The corporate tools have been using attack propaganda from the Heritage Foundation a right-wing think tank to push the idea that the U.S. poor are just not poor enough. Heritage complains that the U.S. poor have more appliances that the poor of other nations. The late Paul M. Weyrich was the founder of the Heritage Foundation along with Joseph Coors of the union busting Coors Brewery. Heritage got its start at pushing a conservative agenda by defending Bob Jones University’s racially discriminatory policies. Bob Jones University had policies that refused black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited interracial dating and marriage between 1975-2000. A quote by Paul M. Weyrich shows how like today’s GOP democracy takes a back seat to winning elections: “I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Heritage and the other corporate owned right-wing think tanks will keep giving their corporate lemmings new propaganda to spread. With the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida you will continue to hear the corporate tools defending the white shooter, George Zimmerman. That will be in an attempt to keep racism alive as a divide and conquer strategy.  As for me I’ll take a wait and see stance on Martin’s shooting, throw a fundraising pity party for the oil companies and pick up some small appliances like toasters to give the homeless and tell them what lucky people they are. Be vigilant and drop me a comment when you recognize the next propaganda from the 1%. It’s not hard to recognize just follow the greed is good stench.

Conscious Plat: Homeless

Land of 10,000 Homeless in Minnesota

” I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.” ~ Robert Kennedy

I listened lunch period after lunch period and either got a sore neck at shaking my head at how idiotic Tracey and Friends were or lost my voice laughing so hard at their utter ignorance. I finally realized Tracey was given a show because she filled a need the GOP had. That was to have African-Americans as voices for their party. Tracey and fellow African-American Jeff rewrite history on a daily basis on the airwaves. They both believe that Abraham Lincoln would recognize today’s present GOP as the party of Lincoln. They throw the 1960′s term Dixiecrat around to undermine today’s Democrat party. They fail to realize those Dixiecrats like, Strom Thurman became Republicans. They need to forget the D and R terms and realize it was liberals who fought to bring civil rights to black Americans. It was conservative mentality that wanted to maintain segregation laws.

The other day Tracey was speaking about political spin. She talked about how she helped out in a mayoral race by “exaggerating” that the opponent in the race may favor legalizing marijuana for personal reasons. She then admitted when she ran for office she told some misstatements about her opponent. She wasn’t apologetic and brushed it all off by saying, everyone does it. Later in the show Tracey was bashing parents for not teaching their kids integrity. She said between the parents and teachers they were dumbing down kids and turning out delinquents. Tracey never saw the irony that her involvement in politics lacked integrity. She never recognized that her and her crew’s daily manipulation of history and facts was dumbing down listeners. Noting that Tracey who has no children, hates unions, hates public sector workers and loves vouchers served on a school board makes anything she has to say about teachers moot. I suppose Tracey like a lot of politicians doesn’t give a hoot about kids they just use being on a school board as the first stepping stone of a political career.

On a show later in the week Tracey and her friend fact hater Sticks were trashing people on welfare. They were talking about how something needs to be done about welfare cheats. Being conservatives they were of course not talking about corporate welfare cheats. Tracey and Sticks both claimed they knew welfare cheats. A caller said he turned in a woman who faked a disability and bragged she was going to get a check and never have to work again. He said that Tracey and Sticks needed to do the right thing and that if they know welfare cheats they need to turn them in. Tracey who does a lot of talking about how people need to take action to make their communities better replied, “I don’t snitch, I’m not getting in to trouble.” Sticks who thinks he is Mr. Righteous said, “The cheats I know all own automatic weapons therefore I’m not turning anyone in.” The caller chastised them both for having no backbone. He said they are like everyone else in that they want to complain but don’t want to do anything.

I would imply they were lying about knowing welfare cheats just because they are haters and want someone to hate. They hate unions because unions are about people coming together to make life better for their fellow workers. They hate liberals because liberals put people before profits. Traci and her crew Sticks, Jeff and Ben are not only know nothings they are do-nothings. They spend three hours a day spreading hate for the GOP. They want to talk about others they consider the blight in our country. The truth is it is people like them that distort the truth, point fingers, refuse to right wrongs or fight for justice that set bad examples for our kids. Our country is plagued by these blow hard do-nothings that don’t want things to change and we need to vaccinate our kids against them by speaking truth to power to our children. As for me I can no longer listen to the Tracey and Friends trainwreck and I’m going back to intelligent talk with the best talk radio host in our valley, Louie b. Free. Sorry I left you Louie but I’m turning off the mindless junk food and joining you for some brain food. Harmony and hope make a better diet than hypocrisy and hate.

Steven Emerson: Blue Beware

Wolf Larsen: If I Be Wrong

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ~ Edmund Burke