The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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One of the most compelling quotes I have ever read about this season of the year is this, "There was a cross in the heart of God before there was one planted on a green hill outside Jerusalem." As we come to the Easter season with all of its beauty, joy and celebration, it is incumbent upon us to remember why there was a resurrection. A tomb was emptied which was once occupied by the most unlikely figure in all of history. Christianity provides no quick leap from believing in God to celebrating...
Spring is upon us and so are the con artists. Recently we have received many calls about a few different types of cons. One set of these criminals call your house and will tell you several things to try and get you to send them money. They often identify themselves as a Sheriff, Deputy Sheriff or an investigator. There are many different versions but the main con is they tell you that you have a warrant for your arrest and you need to send them money before you are arrested. They know many...
After my short hiatus (1 month) from Robservations, a lot has happened. We’ve had a Russian invasion, a missing Boeing 777, a pretty boring Olympics, a Jay Leno departure, idiotic lawmakers saying some pretty idiotic stuff and of course the return of the Walking Dead. As is sometimes customary with my Robservations, instead of writing about just one issue, I like to cover several topics in one column. So here is Bits and Pieces. Malaysian Flight 370 You know, I don’t even know where to beg...
Living in Alabama, we are accustomed to the severe weather that can impact our state and are not surprised by the accompanying loss of electrical power. But imagine for a moment that a temporary power outage continued for weeks, months, or even a year or longer, and that outage affected not only the state of Alabama, but also the vast majority of America. End-of-the-world Hollywood thrillers have always captured the imaginations of movie fans, but the dangers surrounding an electromagnetic...
April presents a mixed bag to outdoorsman across central Alabama. Turkey season continues all month, and with warmer temperatures, the fishing is getting better. This month will see turkey hunting transition from really active gobblers during the first half of the month to a slowdown towards the last half. As hens go to nesting, the gobblers will slow down a bit and hunters will have to modify their tactics to be successful. For you fishermen, April finds crappie and bass moving into shallow...
With spring training winding up for most college football teams, the players will be elated, the coaches will be either happy or deeply concerned and the fans will be delirious after watching the spring games. That event usually indicates that the grueling spring football is over. It is never over for the coaches. They must spend the next week grading the spring game and the entire spring practices. They want to come out of spring with a good idea of who the number ones are, but just as...
HIPAA is the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. Congress passed the law in 1996, but the Privacy and Security portions were not signed into law until 2003. For purposes of this answer I am going to cover the Privacy and Security laws forward. In 2009 the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was enacted to make the sharing of electronic medical records (EMR) or electronic health records (EHR) to be more efficient which includes...
In the two preceding articles we pointed out that the principle cause of crime is inadequate moral formation, and that spending money on law enforcement and penitentiaries does not solve the basic problem. In this column we will explore social dynamics that underscore these two points. Let’s start by saying that crime in general is not the product of brilliant minds. A great contest between extremely intelligent criminals and equally intelligent law enforcement officers makes good movies, but w...
Several years ago The Harvard Education Letter’s lead article was titled “The Power of Family Conversation.” (Vol. 24, No. 3, 2008) It began, “School matters, but literacy starts at home. Teachers armed with reading contracts and carefully worded missives have long urged parents to read aloud to their children. But now there is a second and perhaps more powerful message. Talk with your kids too.” Mounting research proves that language rich families with great communication is linked to school...
Readers like me, a little ‘long in the tooth,’ will more easily make the connection to the Jimmy Stewart film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Considered controversial when released in 1939 yet so successful at the box office, this classic is oft cited as the film which made Stewart an undisputed movie star. Similar to another Frank Capra directed movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” [1946] it would take many years to be recognized and appreciated. In 1989 the Library of Congress added Mr. Smith to the US...
As life should have it, mistakes can be made when composing on the computer. Please note that in rereading last month's article, I saw a typo that I thought I had corrected prior to sending. The ground cover featured and also referred to in the article should be Vinca Major and not Vinca Minor. Mea culpa. The weather has been so volatile, warm some days followed by freezes. Hopefully, by the time of the release of this article, spring will have arrived in all of its glory. Cheers for the...
continued from page 1 Eternity has no measurements, but we count days and years because our bodies are finite. It really was in the heart of God from the beginning and still reverberates through history today. "That is precisely why Christ belongs to every age." It was just last week that many of us watched the movie "The Son of God" which told again the story of what happened to our Lord. Christ will always be contemporary. As a person Jesus Christ lived in our history. As God's Son He is a...
Americans are fortunate to have perhaps the richest language in existence. In many languages there's one way to articulate something, and that's it. The number of pseudonyms, homonyms, figures of speech, or whatever, are limited. There's one way to describe something, and that's it. In English, especially American English, there are a host of ways to say or describe something, which gives us the luxury of being extremely specific in our word usage. Yet we frequently assume that a word has only...
If you’ve recently begun receiving Social Security benefits or plan to apply in the near future, you may be wondering this tax season: are Social Security benefits taxable? The short answer is: sometimes. Some people have to pay federal income taxes on their Social Security benefits. This usually happens only if you have other substantial income (such as wages, self-employment, interest, dividends and other taxable income that must be reported on your tax return) in addition to your Social S...
Easter is not about brightly colored eggs, wearing pastels, or enjoying a big meal. Although, Easter festivities do include these. Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For some, Easter will be a great day, spent surrounded by family and friends. But for others, it will be a sad day, because Easter is a reminder of a loved one who has died and is now desperately missed. Death seems so cruel, so harsh, and so final. That is what the disciples were feeling when they saw...