Be humble

Last Summer I met someone through a blog connection.  I quite liked her and this is one of the reasons.

..they say things.

I have been watching PEI politics for over 30 years.  I listen a lot and I am a pretty good listener.  My awareness of Island politics goes back to the Alex Campbell days.  While Island politics often is dirty, mean spirited and small, I have noticed that more often than not, members of the opposing party would usually find a kind word of some sort for the Premier of the day.  This grudging civility is occasionally extended to ministers of the ruling party. 

Certainly Pat Binns, Angus MacLean and Jim Lee would receive grudging kind personal comments from Liberals.  Many of their ministers would receive the same.

Alex Campbell, Bennett Campbell, Joseph Ghiz, Catherine Callbeck and Keith Milligan all were recipients of kind comments from Tories (Callbeck would of course see everything change after her 7.5% solution).  When criticism was levied, and when the criticism was serious it was usually more political than personal.  Of course when Ms. Callbeck reached into the pocket of Islanders with her 7.5% solution the attack got very personal and cost her the government and most elected Liberals their seat.

Not since Premier Callbeck have I heard such personal vitriolic contempt as I currently hear levied against Premier Ghiz.  How very strange.  Tories who would usually just shrug and say ‘wait for the next election’ are speaking out in very un-island style.  They are no longer afraid of their government.  What is even more intriguing is the old-school Liberals, including many who have enjoyed the largess of previous Liberal governments,  are speaking out – and speaking vehemently about the need to replace the current leader.

I have never seen (heard) this before – even with the emotion of the day aimed at Premier Callbeck. 

Not being Island born, I do not have politics in my genes.  I am still learning.  I am also a little embarrassed at some of the comments being made. 

A former colleague – rabid Republican, blindly enthusiastic Catholic, Pro-lifer, former elected NYS politician, irrationally anti Obama and seemingly well connected with influential decision and policy makers has suggested I google black liberation theology.

Interesting.

What Stephen Hawking is thinking about this?

Perhaps we should try the same in the hopes that it might make the rain STOP!

PATNA, India (Reuters) – Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plow parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials said on Thursday.

Naked girls plow fields for rain - Yahoo! News

Good to see someone commenting on the predatory practices of some legal firms.

Oooooo Kaaaaayyyy

Some heavenly bird droppings found in Bryan, Texas, has left one family in awe.

It was business as usual for Salvador Pachuca who was about to give his truck a much needed wash Sunday. But what he saw next made him stop in his tracks: the image of Virgin Mary miraculously appeared in bird waste on the truck’s mirror.

…The family plans on saving the bird dropping. “I think we’re going to just put it on a shelf outside,” said Cristal Pachuca. “Probably take off the mirror and keep it there because it’s something special to us. I’m not going to wash it off.”

Video: Virgin Mary Image in Bird Dropping

You’re a 19 year old kid.

You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia DrangValley ,  11-14-1965, LZ X-ray ,  Vietnam .  Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you’re not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away and you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then - over the machine gun noise - you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter..

You look up to see an un-armed Huey!!  But.... it doesn’t seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you!  He’s not Medi-Vac so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.  Even after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He’s coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the Doctors and Nurses.

And, he kept coming back..!! 13 more times..!!

He took about 30 of you and your buddies out who would never have gotten out. Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise , ID

I bet you didn’t hear about this hero’s passing, but we’ve sure seen a whole bunch about Michael Jackson.

By the time the Korean War broke out, Ed Freeman was a master sergeant in the Army Engineers, but he fought in Korea as an infantryman. He took part in the bloody battle of Pork Chop Hill and was given a battlefield commission, which had the added advantage of making him eligible to fly, a dream of his since childhood. But flight school turned him down because of his height: At six foot four, he was “too tall” (a nickname that followed him throughout his military career). In 1955, however, the height limit was raised, and Freeman was able to enrol.

He began flying fixed-wing aircraft, then switched to helicopters. By 1965, when he was sent to Vietnam, he had thousands of hours’ flying time in choppers. He was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), second in command of a sixteen-helicopter unit responsible for carrying infantrymen into battle. On November 14, 1965, Freeman’s helicopters carried a battalion into the Ia Drang Valley for what became the first major confrontation between large forces of the American and North Vietnamese armies.  Back at base, Freeman and the other pilots received word that the GIs they had dropped off were taking heavy casualties and running low on supplies. In fact, the fighting was so fierce that medevac helicopters refused to pick up the wounded. When the commander of the helicopter unit asked for volunteers to fly into the battle zone, Freeman alone stepped forward. He was joined by his commander, and the two of them began several hours of flights into the contested area. Because their small emergency-landing zone was just one hundred yards away from the heaviest fighting, their unarmed and lightly armored helicopters took several hits. In all, Freeman carried out fourteen separate rescue missions, bringing in water and ammunition to the besieged soldiers and taking back dozens of wounded, some of whom wouldn’t have survived if they hadn’t been evacuated.

Freeman left Vietnam in 1966 and retired from the Army the following year. He flew helicopters another twenty years for the Department of the Interior, herding wild horses, fighting fires, and performing animal censuses. Then he retired altogether.

In the aftermath of the Ia Drang battle, his commanding officer, wanting to recognize Freeman’s valor, proposed him for the Medal of Honor. But the two-year statute of limitations on these kinds of recommendations had passed, and no action was taken. Congress did away with that statute in 1995, and Freeman was finally awarded the medal by President George W. Bush on July 16, 2001.

Freeman was back at the White House a few months later for the premiere of We Were Soldiers, a 2002 feature film that depicted his role in the Ia Drang battle. As he was filing out of the small White House theater, the president approached him, saluted, and shook his hand. “Good job, Too Tall,” he said.

Rambling Richie and his Noise Rangers are considering bring loud motorcycles under the same legislation that is being proposed for wind generation equipment.  Why not – great opportunity to push around a small group that can’t fight back – something this government seems to see as a positive.

Just for the record, I have a dislike for obnoxiously loud motorcycles.  Also for the record, I have two motorcycles.  A Ducati which is Eurospec 3 compliant, which means that at 50% of redline the sound level is 80 dB.  My BMW, with modified exhaust is (approximately) 96 dB – which I understand to be (or under) the provincial standard.

In my opinion, the good citizens of PEI should not have to have their (mythical) slow pace of life interrupted by window vibrating exhaust sounds from any source.  This includes motorcycles.

My observation is that the vast majority of motorcycles on PEI roads are within the prescribed noise levels.  There is a minority that is not.  Within that minority many will ride their machines in a way that minimizes the noise their machines make when they are in a residential or other sensitive area.  They are responsible and they enjoy the sound of their machines in appropriate areas.

There are the few who simply do not care.  It would be easy to point an accusing finger at the Harley Davidson crowd, but the sport bike crowd with modified exhaust (often sounds like a crazed insect on crack) can be just as offensive.

In my opinion, the answer to the problem created by a very small group of riders is not to put the responsibility back on the inspection facilities.  The answer is enforcement.  If the police will enforce the law, there will be no need to create more laws.  One might wonder why the police do not.  They know who the offenders are – as do most people who ride on PEI. 

Noise legislation should not just be applied to (say) motorcycles and wind plants.  If we are to have the legislation it should apply to all of the offending sources.  The rusty potato truck with no muffler, the scream or roar from the Oyster Bed Driving Park, or the booming base that rattles windows when the car passes can be as offensive as a loud motorcycle.

Will we have double standards?