Tag Archives: FSP

Severe Flu Cases on the Rise in U.S.

31 Dec

As 36 States See High Levels of Illness, Vaccine May Not Fully Protect

flu 1

Valerie Bauerlein

The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 30, 2014 7:40 p.m. ET

This year’s influenza season started earlier than expected and is sending more patients to the hospital, raising concerns this could be a more severe outbreak than in recent years.

Thirty-six states are now experiencing high levels of flu activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, as this year’s flu vaccine may not fully protect against a strain known as influenza A H3N2 that is currently circulating and tends to be more severe.

Fifteen children age 18 and under have died from the flu as of Dec. 20, compared with four such deaths around the same time last year, according to the CDC. A number of hospitals are outpacing previous years, with some restricting visitors to prevent the spread of the virus.

flu 2

“Our medical director said that in his eight years at the hospital, he had never seen double digits” in the number of patients hospitalized, said Jill Chadwick, a spokeswoman at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan. It had a record 25 flu cases admitted as of Monday and two deaths.

Dr. Anna-Kathryn Rye, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital in Columbia, S.C., said the hospital is seeing two to three times the number of flu patients as in a normal season. “We are hoping this week will be the peak,” she said.

The flu shot may not fully protect against the strain of influenza that is currently circulating around the U.S., according to the CDC.

Common Symptoms

Fever, chills

Cough, sore throat, runny nose

Muscle aches, headache, fatigue

Nausea (more common in children)

Source: CDC

flu 3

Distribution problems may be making it harder for some consumers to gain access to antiviral drugs given early in the illness. The CDC alerted pharmacies last week that there may be greater demand for these drugs earlier in the season. Agency officials said they have heard of anecdotal reports of a shortage of Tamiflu, a common antiviral medication.

CVS Caremark Corp. said some of its pharmacies may have intermittent shortages of the liquid version of Tamiflu, due to the supplier’s challenges meeting demand. But CVS said there has been no shortage of the capsule version of Tamiflu, and patients can ask their pharmacist about having the capsule versions compounded into a liquid, spokesman Michael DeAngelis said.

For patients of all ages, the hospitalization rate of flu patients so far is 9.7 people per 100,000 people in the general population, compared with 4.3 people per 100,000 last year and 5.5 people per 100,000 in the 2012-13 flu season.

Dr. Michael Jhung, a medical officer in the CDC’s flu division, cautioned that it was too soon to say whether this will be worse than recent years. “We never know how this season compares to the previous season until the end of the year,” he said.

This flu season has been dominated by the H3N2 virus, according to CDC. Vaccines configured in early February typically protect against three to four flu viruses, and this year’s included H3N2. However, the virus showed substantial changes, or mutations, in March. That means the vaccine, while still conferring some immunity, doesn’t work as well. H3N2 is associated with more hospitalizations and deaths.

flu 4

The last time the H3N2 strain of flu was widespread was two years ago, and this season’s rate of hospitalizations for people age 65 and older is already outpacing the rate for 2012-2013. CDC officials said that suggests this flu season might be more severe, although it may mean the flu is simply striking earlier.

About 40% of Americans have been vaccinated for the flu, with 140 million vaccine doses distributed, said Dr. Jhung. Children under the age of 2, people age 65 and over, and people with chronic health conditions such as asthma are most at risk of severe illness from the flu. Between 5% and 20% of Americans get the flu, with 15 million to 60 million people afflicted each year.

The CDC is still recommending that unvaccinated people get flu vaccines because they might provide protection and reduce severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death, officials said.

Joel Sawyer, a 38-year-old political consultant in Columbia, S.C., was diagnosed with the H3N2 strain of flu last week and said he’d rarely felt so sick.

“It’s like a hybrid between a terrible cold and strep,” he said. “You alternate between hot and cold, hot and cold. You can’t get comfortable.”

At Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, hospital officials on Christmas Eve began limiting flu patients’ visitors to immediate family. “It’s more significant than we’ve seen over the past two years,” spokesman Gregg Lagan said. “It’s even catching individuals who have the flu shot.”

David Weber, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said what differentiates this year is the spike in cases in mid-December and the flu’s relative severity.

The UNC Health Care system, which includes the 800-bed UNC hospital complex in Chapel Hill and dozens of doctors’ offices and clinics, has had 323 patients test positive for flu so far this season. The majority are H3N2, the strain for which this year’s flu shot has proved “less than a perfect match,” Dr. Weber said. Patients, particularly very old or very young ones, are showing up more sick than they might be in an average year, he added.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Understanding Influenza (Flu) Infection: An Influenza Virus Binds to a Respiratory Tract Cell

Understanding Influenza Flu Infection: An Influenza Virus Binds to a Respiratory Tract Cell

This image illustrates the very beginning stages of an influenza (flu) infection. Most experts think that influenza viruses spread mainly through small droplets containing influenza virus. These droplets are expelled into the air when people infected with the flu cough, sneeze or talk. Once in the air, these small infectious droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby.

This image shows what happens after these influenza viruses enter the human body. The viruses attach to cells within the nasal passages and throat (i.e., the respiratory tract). The influenza virus’s hemagglutinin (HA) surface proteins then bind to the sialic acid receptors on the surface of a human respiratory tract cell. The structure of the influenza virus’s HA surface proteins is designed to fit the sialic acid receptors of the human cell, like a key to a lock. Once the key enters the lock, the influenza virus is then able to enter and infect the cell. This marks the beginning of a flu infection

Tags: , ,

Al-Qaeda warns of more lone wolves

28 Dec

Jihadist magazine hails recent atrocities, predicts more lone wolves and gives new bomb-making recipe

 isis 2
 
 
 
 
 

Glossy Jihadist magazine hails recent atrocities predicts more lone wolves and gives new bomb making recipe

Nasr bin Ali al-Ansi, a top commander for Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula Photo: AFP/Getty/Site
David Millward

By , US Correspondent

The West should brace itself for more lone wolf terrorist attacks, an al-Qaeda official has warned in a magazine interview.

Gloating over a wave of recent atrocities, Sheikh Nasr Al Ansi said more were to come in an interview with a glossy Jihadist magazine, Inspire.

Slickly produced and chilling in its content, the magazine not only hails the work of the lone wolf, but also provides the recipe for another bomb which, it claims, will be undetectable at many airports.

Western intelligence experts have voiced fears at the threat posed by individual jihadists without obvious connections to Islamist militants.

Their fears appear to be well-founded, according to the interview.

“Because some deaths are caused by a thousand cuts. And a small blood clot paralyses the whole body.”

He adds: “Allah the Almighty has facilitated for them capabilities that are absent to other Muslims: reaching the heart of the enemy’s land and other targets.”

Advice for the lone wolf ranges from how to produce a bomb to how to handle the publicity from the atrocity.

Written in the style of a commercial cookbook, the “AQ chef”, describes how commercially available ingredients can be used to make a device.

The devices can be made in a kitchen, the magazine adds.

“If a Mujahid can prepare a bomb from materials used in the kitchen instead of lab material and instead of lab materials use cooking utensils, then we have a double success and we have overcome the security hurdle.

“Generally we are trying as much as possible to move the lone Mujahid from the lab to the pharmacy and the pharmacy to the kitchen.”

Tags: , ,

DOUG SMITH: MORALITY AND THE PACIFIST

26 Dec

Which perspective will history favor?

From the FSP moderator:  This is the first of a series of columns in which author and historian, Doug Smith, offers contrast between varying positions of an age-old question of morality: “Turn the other cheek” or “an eye for an eye”?

doug smith

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight, but Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.

Hilaire Belloc

pac 1

I am fascinated with the question of how pacifists come to the decision never to fight.   I struggle to overcome my own fight of flight instinct.  When I am challenged, or threatened, those impulses make me want to seek safety by running, or by hurting the threat before it can hurt me.  Oh, who am I kidding? I just want to hurt them before they can hurt me.  With time and maturity, I learned to check those impulses with a soft response.  On other occasions, they led me to charge into a fight I had little chance of winning.

I admit to being in conflict when I was a Cold War sailor on a Nuclear Attack Submarine.

nuke subnuke sub 2nuke sub 3

If we carried out our primary mission, many sailors would die at once in a radioactive cloud of steam.   I empathized with those Russian sailors who faced the same risks as we did.  They knew, as we did, how the weapons deployed against us could either vaporize us, or, in a near miss, crack our hulls and send us plunging to the dark, cold bottom of the ocean, dying somewhere along the way down.  It was impossible to truly wish that death on another Submarine sailor, even our enemy.

We all hoped it might never happen to either of us.

On the other hand, I am certain that if the orders came, they were mere minutes from them sending nuclear death toward our cities or our fleets, or even us.  There would be no hesitation.  On the contrary, we would run in our skivvies and socks to battle stations.   We would be manning phones while pulling on our shirts, plotting targets while we tied our shoes, preparing weapons, and updating position data as we zipped our trousers.  We would launch quickly as we had a firing solution, hopefully before they could do the same to us, or to New York, or Washington, or our own home towns.

We had nothing in particular against those young Russian boys a few miles from us. None of us were particularly anxious for a war, nor were any, well most of us, homicidal.  But our job was to kill them, and kill them we would.

Now this brings me to Albert Einstein.  An avowed pacifist, he once said

“I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.”

pac 2pac 5

Yet his name is right there in any history of the atomic bomb along with Robert Oppenheimer. Einstein, as much as anyone, formed the Cold War battlefields into which we sailed.  Einstein’s involvement was not simply theoretical, although his theories did lead, by inevitable progression to the mushroom clouds over Trinity and Japan.

He also used his influence as a renowned scientist to write a series of letters to FDR, urging him to launch the Manhattan Project and develop atomic weapons.  An odd undertaking for a pacifist, is it not?  So what made the difference for Al?  Hitler absorbed Austria and began a war of acquisition in Europe.  There was abundant evidence of the brutality and cruelty of the Nazis, as well as indications his scientists doing research in Deuterium that could lead to their development of an atomic bomb.

“My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.”

Albert Einstein

pac 4pac 3

(Einstein lied, people died! There were no WMD s in Germany. )

Maybe Einstein was in love with the idea of pacifism, until his own ox was gored.  Then he abandoned it all in a magnificent fashion.  He is hardly the first pacifist to discover in a bloody lip, or family, or country, that perhaps there ARE things worth fighting, and killing, and dying for.  Or that while dying for one’s country may be fine and noble, killing for one’s country is harder, more bitter in the mouth, yet more necessary when facing truly evil men.

He just happens to be the one whose revelation ushered in the Atomic Age.

So, when was he wrong? When he was a pacifist and would fight for peace?

And when was he right? When he was the intellectual and moral force behind the light of 10,000 suns bursting over the New Mexico desert?

An excellent question.  Stay tuned.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

Tags: , , ,

S. H. TOWNSEND: HAS OUR NATION’S WORKFORCE BECOME A FIELD OF BATTLE?

11 Dec

shelleye

This is part four in an ongoing series on the “War on Women” by author S.H. Townsend.

wow 5

Is there a war on women? My experiences have proven that there is indeed a war against women. Why is there a war against woman? Who is responsible for the start of this war? Who or what continues to keep this war going? I have a few theories.

Women had to fight for the right to vote. Their efforts paid off in 1920, and they were awarded the right to vote. That battle was won. What other battles have women faced since that point in time?

wow 1

We’ve all heard about the wages wars. I remember them during the eighties, when more women were joining the workforce. They made demands for equal pay. Even today, women claim that they still don’t receive as much pay as their male colleagues. I am not qualified to comment on the wage wars, as my time in the workforce was limited.

I did not leave the working world to stay home to raise the children. I have no children. My decision was due to the fact that I have hated nearly every job I have held, save for one or two, so I decided to become a writer.

wow 2

During my time in the workforce, I did fall subject to some battles in the war against women. My last employer through a job service agency was the worst. The man who owned and operated the local towing company where I was sent to work surpassed my ex-husband as King Chauvinist. He often bragged to the men who came in about how I “knew my place” in his company. He even had the audacity to compare me to other women who were previously employed there. He once announced, “The last woman they sent from Poor Excuse for Job Services* was found in the garage with Average Joe.” And the woman was fired, but Average Joe was congratulated for his conquest and he is still employed there today. Imagine that.

I’m not defending that woman. They should have both been fired for their sexual escapades on company property! That’s just how King Chauvinist ran his business.

wow 3

I worked there for less than three months. I was so angry at everything I had been put through that I ended up composing a four page letter to the company, explaining in great detail why I could no longer maintain employment with their company. I had tried to talk with Poor Excuse for Job Services about the ill treatment I was receiving from the towing company. I kept begging them to place me somewhere else, but they didn’t give a crap. When I quit, I furnished the job service agency with the four page letter. After that, I was never offered another job through Poor Excuse for Job Services Agency.

I attempted to find other jobs, but I only received calls for two job interviews in eleven months. I gave up the (lack of) job search and started writing full time.

wow 4

The only reason I stayed at that towing company for as long as I did was because my husband was unemployed, and his unemployment check paid our rent, but after that, we were left with no money for food or utilities.

Is there still a wage war against women? I couldn’t tell you. I’m not qualified to say a word about it. I’m assuming it solely depends on the company for which the women in question work.

Tags: ,

Mark Caserta: Broken promises caused election losses

11 Dec

Lying is simply part and parcel of the progressive movement

false 2

Dec. 11, 2014 @ 12:01 AM

MARK CASERTA

Apparently honesty, integrity and the rule of law have little meaning for liberals. For they would have you believe these missing qualities in the Obama administration had nothing to do with the shellacking Democrats took in the November election.

Despite the fact that the pattern of disingenuous governing by Barack Hussein Obama has become as evident as the nose on your face, liberals continue to make excuses for this president and ignore his lying in the interest of propagating progressivism.

And frankly it’s laughable for someone to blame “the poor” for not voting or the two-thirds of the voters who didn’t go to the polls, rather than ask themselves “why” would many who had previously supported this president’s policies turn on him.

false 1

Perhaps progressives should consider these presidential canards which they’ve never been able to plausibly explain to the American people.

n “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” This was, of course, Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” for 2014. Yet, for liberals the end justifies the means.

n “My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.” But the Obama administration has set a new standard for deceptive governing. Some recall during his 2008 campaign the president repeatedly promised health care negotiations in Congress would be televised on C-SPAN. But it never happened and liberals looked the other way.

false 3

n “We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care. Families will save on their premiums…” Barack Obama repeatedly promised Americans that Obamacare would cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year. But as rates spike across the nation, liberals just keep marching.

n “We’ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country that governors and mayors are pleading to fund. And the minute we can get those investments to the state level, jobs are going to be created.” Obama later referenced this failed objective of his stimulus package during a jobs council meeting and joked about the promise saying, “Shovel-ready was not as… uh … shovel-ready as we expected.” Liberals just laughed it off.

n “I don’t want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be the president of the ‘United States of America.'” Really, Mr. President? You’ve helped renew racial tensions that are sweeping the nation! And while Barack Obama counsels with Al Sharpton for a plan to “unite” America, progressives are silent.

lie 2

Do you suppose liberals would be “deaf and mute” to this fraudulence if it was a GOP president? They simply know they can’t deliberate these points on their merits, so they predictably play the race card or the blame game. Anyone not in denial can easily figure this out.

The American people have simply had enough of this president’s lies and broken promises, and Barack Obama’s “chickens are coming home to roost.”

Tags: ,

Founding Fathers relied on God’s wisdom

8 Dec

We can do all things through Christ…

declaration signing

Dec. 20, 2012 @ 12:00 AM

Our Founding Fathers understood the significance and potential ramifications of their actions as they gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to create the most influential document in the history of the western world — the Constitution of the United States of America.

Conventional wisdom alone would not suffice in creating the document that would become the foundation for our nation’s growth for hundreds of years. This task required wisdom from On High.

And that wisdom came from God’s Word.

The distortion of history perpetuated by some would have you believe our Constitution has no Biblical or Christian roots and the Founding Fathers were mostly deists and not Christians.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

bill of rightsff praying

Most early Americans were dedicated, Bible-believing Christians who took their faith seriously. Research reveals 52 of the 55 framers were avowed Christians and drew upon their faith and biblical principles to construct the Constitution.

James Madison, the chief architect of the document, said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it … We have staked the future of all of our political institutions … upon the capacity of each and all of us…to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Understand, for progressives to justify their inclusive, “adjustable standards” approach to “moving forward,” they must first bring into question the divine providence, exactness and intent of the most important compilation of scriptures ever written — the Bible.

It isn’t surprising that false prophets professing a “scholarly” biblical wisdom would challenge the accuracy of God’s Word. Compromising the impact of the Bible on the founding principles of our nation opens the door to charges of inaccuracy and misdirected application of every document birthed from the Bible’s influence and clears the path for people to experience the world’s “progressive freedoms” as opposed to the freedom provided by God’s truths.

soldierff praying 2

The Gospel of Matthew warns us of “ravening wolves” that would come to us in “sheep’s clothing” offering a comforting, yet deceitful word in pursuing the desires of the flesh.

After all, isn’t that the approach Satan used with Eve in the Garden of Eden?

Genesis describes the “serpent” as being more “crafty” than any of the other wild animals God had created.

Satan queried the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Creating doubt in Eve’s mind as to the accuracy and intent of God’s instructions enabled ambiguity in the disobedience of the act.

Our Founding Fathers hoped the transcendence of religious faith in America would be a guiding light toward building the “constitution” or “character” of our nation.

But progressives seek “fundamental change” irrespective of our Christian roots and misuse the First Amendment’s mandate for Congress to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion” by purposely ignoring “or prohibit the free exercise thereof” in a movement against Christianity.

The Bible declares God made foolish the wisdom of this world. And it must be true.

Liberals remind us of it every day.

flag cover

Mark Caserta is a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

Tags: ,

America Is Coming Apart at the Seams

7 Dec

america coming apart

2012 Dec 5, 2014 3:39 PM EST

By Francis Wilkinson

It was the most Republican of times, it was the most Democratic of times.

That’s the U.S. right now, a nation heading in two diametrically opposed directions. Where you live in the country has always influenced how you live. But divergent public policy choices, rooted in sharp partisan conflict, are heightening the geographic distinctions.

House Republicans this week passed legislation designed primarily to channel conservative rage and secondarily to vaporize 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Republicans won’t provide funds to deport the immigrants, and they won’t provide a method of rationalizing those immigrants’ existence here. So they will simply pretend that they don’t exist.

In January, the first Republican legislative act of 2015 is expected to be another vote to repeal Obamacare, the health-care reform that has been working out better than even its proponents predicted.

Meanwhile, across the the continent, California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown also has immigrants and health care on his mind. Brown is analyzing whether the state can extend its version of Medicaid health insurance to undocumented immigrants who are covered by President Barack Obama’s executive action on amnesty.

OBAMACARE

“We’re still evaluating, but the president’s recent action on undocumented immigrants could perhaps open a door for more coverage of more people under Medi-Cal,’’ Nancy McFadden, the governor’s top policy aide, told the Los Angeles Times.

California is not just a blue state with a Democratic governor and legislature. It’s home to almost one in eight Americans. And it has by far the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants — one in four live there, according to the Pew Research Center.

So in the very near future, undocumented immigrants who reside in California (some by virtue of having snuck illegally over the border) may be covered by publicly-funded health insurance while many U.S. citizens living in Texas and the Deep South will have no access to health insurance of any kind, thanks to the Republican war on Obamacare. (In Texas, more than one quarter of the population lacks health insurance, a number that seems stubbornly resistant to the charms of the “Texas miracle.”)

The U.S. also looks like two different places when it comes to guns and abortion. In Washington state, for example, where abortion law was recently liberalized, there are no waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortion. In Mississippi, restrictions are plentiful, and the state government has been working steadily to shut the sole abortion clinic in the state. On guns, Connecticut voters reelected a Democratic governor who supported sweeping gun regulations in the wake of the Newtown shooting. In Georgia, you can now legally carry a loaded firearm into a bar.

immigration 1

Then there are voting rights. Legislators in red states, such as North Carolina and Texas, have been adding carefully crafted layers of difficulty to voting, from voter ID laws to reduced early voting and restrictions on student ballots. Illinois, meanwhile, appears poised to enact same-day registration for voting.

The Chicago Sun-Times:

Besides allowing people to register and vote on the same day at polling places, the bill would allow extended early voting, as well as make it easier for students to vote at college campuses.

Increasingly, the rights of many American citizens depend less on the U.S. Constitution and more on which state they live in. Again, this isn’t a new phenomenon — especially for blacks, who had no guaranteed rights in most of the South for most of American history. But the divergence is stark.

And growing. As Bloomberg News reporter Greg Giroux reported, many red and blue states are only deepening their partisan identities as voters increasingly abandon split-ticket voting:

If Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu loses her runoff election next week, the Senate that convenes in January will have 84 senators of the same political party that carried their state in the most recent presidential election. That’s the most in more than six decades, according to statistics compiled by Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. There were 61 such senators in 1999, after the second midterm election of President Bill Clinton’s administration, and 43 in 1987.

There’s also more partisan alignment in voting for the House of Representatives and for president.

Polarization has its own logic. And as red and blue states pursue their sharply divergent versions of government, each increasingly presents a vision of Dickensian hell to the other.

progressives

To contact the author on this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net

Tags: , , ,

Doug Smith: Bos Johnson leaves a legacy of integrity, honesty

7 Dec

FSP moderator:  While this column has a local flavor, historian Doug Smith takes us on a journey to a time when honesty and integrity were virtuous parts of journalism.  I think you’ll enjoy this piece and the photo gallery.

doug smith

Dec. 07, 2014 @ 12:01 AM

 bozboz 1

I remember television. I was born in 1955, the first generation growing up with television, Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Cartoon. I grew up with fuzzy, black-and-white images, the test pattern, “This just in” and “Film at 11.” They really did develop “film” for the 11 o’clock news. And, they had Bos Johnson.

When Bos started on WSAZ, I was a kid, bored by the news, but not by Mr. Cartoon. I grew up watching Jule Huffman. But Bos meant the news and I didn’t care. I ate ice cream while Dad watched, and I heard that familiar voice say, “This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

mr. cartoon 1 mr. cartoon 2captain 2captain 1

When I was 8, one story touched me. I watched, stunned, as we heard our President was dead; as a little boy tried to be brave while his daddy’s body passed; as millions said a tearful goodbye. And again, that familiar voice,

“This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

jfk 1 jfk 2

Then there were reports from Da Nang, Saigon, and Hanoi. Boys little older than me were going to fight in mud and heat, halfway round the world in Vietnam. They were coming back hurt, broken, or not at all. Dad was glued to the reports on the war. I remember asking “Are we really in a war?” but I can’t remember Dad’s answer. But I realized that soon I would be old enough to go off with them. And I started to watch the news with him. Amid all this, I heard that familiar voice:

“This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night. ”

denang 1 denang 2

There came that awful day for all of Huntington, when the plane crashed, killing our Marshall football team, our friends and our innocence. A wound opened in all of us. At the end of that day, for once, that familiar voice failed him.

That night, Bos could not say the words. It was OK, Bos; we didn’t have words either. The broadcast day just ended.

mu1 mu2

In my senior year Watergate was the news. Our familiar voice asked the first question in the last press conference for Richard Nixon: “Mr. President, will you resign?” A week later President Nixon did just that. Soon afterward, I joined the Navy and left Huntington. I heard, for nearly the last time, “This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

Two years later, while I was half a world away, Bos Johnson retired from WSAZ.

watergate 1 watergate 2

I came home again and was glad to see Bos, along with his wife Dottie, briskly debating the issues of the day in a different format. A more weathered Bos, but still that same familiar voice that narrated so much of my life was there one more time.

And now, sadly, he is gone.

For decades of honest reporting, the integrity you brought to a new industry, and setting the bar for quality reporting in our small corner of Almost Heaven, thank you.

So, from all of us here in the Huntington viewing area, back to you, Bos Johnson, reporting from Heaven, good night.

boz 2

Doug Smith joined the Navy in Huntington, WV, and served aboard the Nuclear Fast Attack Submarine USS Gato, SSN 615,
and as an Instructor at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut, where he achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
He also served as a tour guide and docent at the Submarine Force Library and Museum.  He is an avid student of history, and writes on subjects touching military and political history of the United States.

Tags: ,

S.H. TOWNSEND: THE WAR ON WOMEN – CHIVALRY OR OPPRESSION?

6 Dec

S. H. TOWNSEND

This is part three in an ongoing series on the “War on Women” by author S.H. Townsend.

  war 2

Because of the many battles I have fought against my will, my perspective of men and women was even more distorted. I honestly didn’t want to fight, but I’m so glad I had the strength to do so, and I do thank my mother’s partner for that. She did groom me to be a strong woman, despite the other things she misrepresented to me in my young life. My mother was also a strong woman, but she didn’t find her strength until later in life, but I knew she had it in her.

 When I met my husband, to whom I’m still happily married, I told him point blank that the last thing I needed was another man to run my life. He was completely gob smacked by my forwardness and by what I had said to him. I was surprised he didn’t run away, and who could have blamed him? He stayed, much to my chagrin. I honestly tried to push him away and run him off, but he wasn’t budging.

war on women b

 My husband was raised by an older generation. His parents were fourteen years older than my parents when they had him. They were raised by an older generation as well. My husband was taught to open doors for women carry bags and other heavy objects for them, and in general how to conduct himself in the presence of the fairer sex. (This was another term I hated with a passion.) He was brought up to be a complete gentleman, but I was certainly no lady. (I’m still not, and that’s okay. I was made for war, not smelling salts.)

 The first time my husband opened the door for me, I looked at him and said, “My arms aren’t broken.” Again, he had a puzzled expression on his face similar to the one he wore when I told him the last thing I needed was another man to run my life. He insisted upon opening doors for me and paying for things, again much to my chagrin. I tried to put a stop to it, but I couldn’t. I even told him that he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell with me, but he was persistent, and his persistence paid off.

war on women c

  I gave in to my feelings for him, the feelings I kept hidden behind the mask I wore. I was afraid he would hurt and betray me just like the other men in my life had done. Instead, he accepted the terms and conditions of me, my flaws, my distorted perceptions, and my issues, and he loved me. He still loves me.

 Eventually, I got used to being treated like the woman that I am, and I began to like it. It wasn’t so bad, having someone open my door, carry my things, and do the things that I’m actually capable of doing, but it’s nice. Those things didn’t change who I am. It changed my attitude about myself as a woman, but it didn’t make me any less of a strong woman.

  I still have enough backbone for two people, and I am still woman, hear me roar.

 Now I just roar about different things.

 war on women d

 

 

Tags: , ,

DOUG SMITH: LYING – A CULTURAL PHENOMENA

2 Dec

lieslies 2

Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me

Friedrich Neitzche

Lying doesn’t matter. It’s ok, especially if you are telling a lie in order to further something you believe. Even if what you believe is also a lie. Any of us can say anything we want, and it never matters. There are no consequences for being an untruthful person. That is the lesson of modern America.

twanna 1twanna 2

In 1988, a 15 year old girl in New York created a story about being raped, assaulted, and smeared with feces by a gang of white men. A civil rights huckster named Al Sharpton accused a police officer who had recently committed suicide and a prosecutor named Steven Pagones. When asked what proof he had, Sharpton huffed “I have Tawana Brawley’s words.”

The NY Attorney General had a security guard from the lawyers “advising” Brawley who testified before the grand jury that they all knew from the start she was lying. As it turns out, none of them had anything but a sensational story, with racial overtones, which brought them a lot of attention. Tawana Brawley made up the story to cover being out late with her boyfriend.

Steven Pagones sued for defamation of character, and was awarded 85,000, which Sharpton did not pay. It was paid for him by Johnny Cochran and other supporters.

Brawley is a nurse in Florida.   She was ordered to pay 450,000 in damages, but refused until 2013 when a judge ordered her wages garnished. 26 years after the fact she has paid less than 4, 000 dollars

Today, Sharpton is worth millions. (Even counting the 1.2 mill in back taxes he refuses to pay. Someone call Lois Lerner. ) He gets paid 6 figures by MSNBC. He has been to the White House 85 times. Not bad for a boy Pentecostal preacher from Brooklyn. Guess the Gospel was not paying him so well. Hate, it seems, sells better.

Dorian Johnson began the mythical story “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Given the way of things. It will be in history books in 20 years. The problem of course, is that it never happened.

michael brown 1 michael brown 2

Reports proved  that Brown was not shot in the back, did not have his hands up, and had been shot at close range on one hand (consistent with Wilson’s story about a struggle for his gun in the patrol car). He also had enough THC in his body to cause hallucinations.

Johnson has not been charged in the robbery, or for his false reports.

bill 1 bill 2

Bill Clinton’s now infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewinsky” is the stuff of legend.  Impeached, but not convicted, he is still the Grand Old Man of the Democrats.

Barack Obama: Keep your plan and 6 years of lies, and his consequences?  The Democrats lost both Houses of Congress, but not him.  The GOP withheld funding, then caved. He is very unpopular, which no longer matters.

Brawley, Sharpton, Clinton, Obama, Johnson, all liars; all without consequence, apparently better off for the lie than without it.

Lesson for our culture: Lie.

Truth doesn’t matter. Truth and integrity are outdated social mores.

“That I know longer believe you, has shaken me.”  And it has shaken our society, not for the better.

Tags: ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →