tagged w/ Dallas Morning News
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The real issue of the Arizona tragedy : mental illness.
- Arizona tragedy arose from mental illness, not political incivility -
I think we can all agree that more civility in politics would be a good thing.
But it would also be nice if the tragic shootings in Arizona prompted a discussion of the real issue at hand, not a wild goose chase about ugly politics.
Mental illness – that's the thing we ought to be talking about, plain and simple.
Jared Loughner rattled on in gibberish about words, the meaning of words, the meaninglessness of words, words, words.
The 22-year-old dropped out of community college after frightening classmates with his hostile, rambling outbursts. He was told he couldn't return without assurances from mental-health professionals that he wasn't dangerous.
And we're harping at each other about civility in politics?
Sometimes I wonder about our own collective mental health. We would rather not deal with reality.
If Loughner is simply another young man with mental illness, well then, that doesn't leave us much room to scold each other over incivility or gun laws or whatever.
Or does it?
It may not be nearly as much fun, but this tragedy offers plenty of opportunity to talk about mental illness and the shabby way our society deals with it.
For the record, Dr. James Baker said neither political civility nor talk radio nor Sarah Palin came to his mind when he heard news about the shooter.
"I said to myself, ‘I'll bet it turns out that he has mental health problems.' "
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/011211dnmetblow.a5382ab2.html
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http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd234/mywhitestar/rainbowgun-1.jpgThe real issue of the Arizona tragedy : mental illness.
- Arizona tragedy arose... more
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Latest Complete News Updates Jim Brown's syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. Irving, Texas - Growing up in Elyria, Ohio in the 50's and 60's made LSU Coach Mr. Les Miles quite a Cleveland Browns fan, and therefore, a Mr. Jim Brown fan.Latest Complete News Updates Jim Brown's syndicated column appears each week in... more
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kamoo
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1 year ago
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Latest News updates Wade Phillips Fired New Coach Mr Jason Garrett Confirm: This blogger has nothing but complete admiration for Mr Dallas Cowboys Owner Mr Jerry Jones.Latest News updates Wade Phillips Fired New Coach Mr Jason Garrett Confirm: This... more
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Latest News Updates Mr Wade Phillips was informed by Cowboys owner Mr Jerry Jones on Monday that he has been fired as the team's head coach, sources told FanHouse.Latest News Updates Mr Wade Phillips was informed by Cowboys owner Mr Jerry Jones on... more
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The United States is under attack by narco terrorists invading from the failed state of Mexico and Obama and the federal government are doing nothing about it.
In June, the Mexican drug mafia forced the closure of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. Authorities in Arizona admit that criminals now control a drug and human smuggling corridor that stretches from the border into metro Phoenix. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu explained in June that the Mexican Mafia controls three counties in his state.
Now drug smugglers are repeating the pattern in Texas.
On Saturday, the Cypress Times, an online newspaper in Cypress, Texas, reported that the murderous Los Zetas has crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. The owners of the farms have evacuated and were not harmed.
“I can personally vouch that this info came in late last night from a reliable police source inside the Laredo PD,” Jeff Schwilk, founder of the San Diego Minutemen, told the online newspaper. “There is currently a standoff between the unknown size Zeta forces and U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement on two ranches on our side of the Rio Grande.”
Kimberly Dvorak, writing for the Albuquerque Examiner, reports that two sources inside the Laredo Police Department have confirmed the incident. “We consider this an act of war,” said one police officer on the ground near the scene. There is a news blackout of this incident at this time and the sources inside Laredo PD spoke on the condition of anonymity, writes Dvorak.
The DBKP blog contacted the the Laredo Police Department on Saturday. “We have been advised to say nothing. The Webb County Sheriff is taking the lead on this and they’re advising that they can’t confirm anything either,” a spokesperson told the blog.
On March 30, 2008, the Dallas Morning News reported Mexican drug cartels operated military-style training camps in at least six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states, some within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who were trained in the camps.
“Traffickers go to great lengths to prepare themselves for battle,” a senior U.S. anti-narcotics official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper. “Part of that preparation is live firing ranges and combat training courses…. And that’s not something that we have seen before.” In the state of Tamaulipas, Los Zetas train with other mercenaries, including the Kaibiles from Guatemala, the officials said.
The Justice Department warned local police in Arizona and California about Los Zetas violence along the border. “The violence will spill over the Mexican border into the United States and law enforcement agencies in Texas, Arizona and Southern California can expect to encounter Los Zetas in the coming months,” warned an intelligence bulletin issued by the feds. The Justice Department and Homeland Security consider the Mexican drug cartels as the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.
Los Zetas was founded by an elite force of assassins from Mexican Army deserters and is now integrated by corrupt ex-federal, state, and local police officers. Los Zetas was first hired as a private mercenary army for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, but since February of this year have gone independent and are now enemies of its former partner.
In the first eleven months of 2008, Los Zetas killers were directly responsible for the deaths of 5,300 people, including soldiers, their own operatives, civilians, journalists, and rival drug traffickers.
In 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderon supposedly declared war on the drug cartels. Since Calderon’s declaration, more than 25,000 people have been killed in Mexico due to drug violence. In June of this year alone hundreds of people in Mexico died from drug-related violence.
Last week CBS News said Mexico’s drug Mafia had adopted “al-Qaeda tactics” after a car bomb exploded across the border from El Paso, Texas, in Ciudad Juárez, killing two federal officers and a musician and injuring 11 people, including several bystanders. In late June, the El Paso City Hall was struck by gunfire from a deadly narco terrorist attack across the border in Juárez.
In May, Obama announced that 1,200 troops would be sent to the border to crack down on smuggling and drug cartel violence. Critics have called it political posturing in the run-up to November congressional elections and a response to Arizona’s recently passed immigration law.
Republicans in Texas consider the deployment of 250 troops in their state an insult. “The National Guard troops are not an adequate or long-term solution — they’re only a Band-Aid,” a spokeswoman for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White told the Star-Telegram. “Maybe Texas should sue the federal government for not doing its job,” added U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville.
Senator Kyl of Arizona said in June that Obama is refusing to secure the border until Congress passes so-called immigration reform. “The problem is, he said, if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform,” Kyl said at a town hall organized by a local Arizona Tea Party.
In June, the banksters admitted they fund the Mexican drug Mafia. Wachovia and Bank of America have moved money for Mexican drug smugglers.
“The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years,” Bloomberg reported. “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case, told Bloomberg.
Bankster participation has also financed the Mexican Mafia’s expansion into Texas and Arizona.The United States is under attack by narco terrorists invading from the failed state... more
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Arizona misguided, but fears of residents aren't
There's a restful schadenfreude in watching the contempt of the nation shower down on somebody else's fool head, to see someone else reviled, for a change, for their parochial public cranks.
And as long as the demagogues in Arizona are dancing and tooting their horns, everybody's hands are too full to worry about crazy secessionist talk or bizarre textbook revisions down here in Texas.
A little part of me whispers with relief: It's somebody else's turn to look absurd. Let them convince a jeering world that we're not all bonkers; it's just a small but noisy rabble.
It's even tempting to join the party and mock the infernal union of paranoid retirees and blowhard opportunists that gave birth to Arizona's notorious new immigration law.
Unquestionably, it's a bad law. No matter how you try to modify its specifics or defend its intent, it draws official suspicion to certain people because of race. In the hands of overzealous cops or unscrupulous public officials, it's a ready-made tool for sanctioned abuse.
But, as is so often the case, the issue has been dramatically oversimplified, the facts on the ground often ignored in favor of neatly fitting a preconceived political storyline.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_04.1met.ART0.State.Edition1.6f987.htmlArizona misguided, but fears of residents aren't
There's a restful... more
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OPINION Blog | The Dallas Morning News
Slate's interactive feature testing how much you vary your news diet is making the rounds among my friends.
The feature is based on a paper from two University of Chicago researchers. They asked 12,000 people to identify their political leanings -- and then to share which of 112 online news sites they visit. They then scored those sites based on the political affiliation of its readers
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http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/OPINION Blog | The Dallas Morning News
Slate's interactive feature testing how... more
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Insightful article on the vibrant Houston music scene from The Dallas Morning News.
http://www.thehoustonsound.com/?p=86Insightful article on the vibrant Houston music scene from The Dallas Morning News.... more
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Families, businesses flee embattled Juárez for safer, greener pastures in U.S.
EL PASO – A painting in the apartment of novelist Benjamin Sáenz depicts an exodus of Mexican campesinos to El Paso during the 1910 Mexican Revolution – part of a larger group of refugees that included business and civic leaders. Many settled in this Sunset Heights neighborhood.
A street named for then-President Porfirio Díaz cuts through the historic area. Another former Mexican general and president, Victoriano Huerta, is buried nearby.
These days, as drug cartel-fueled violence pushes a new wave of emigrants northward, history seems to be repeating itself – with one striking difference.
"This time, the newcomers are settling everywhere, the West, Eastside, Upper Valley, Horizon City," said Sáenz, a literature professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. "It's not just Sunset Heights anymore, but everywhere."
This immigrant wave includes civic leaders and entrepreneurs, who have moved dozens of businesses north, generating jobs and a boost in the housing and real estate markets.
Months of savage violence across the border in Ciudad Juárez and elsewhere in Mexico are spurring a new exodus to El Paso, as well as other southern U.S. cities, including Dallas. But El Paso, already familiar for many living along the border, is a favored destination.
Nobody knows the exact number of Mexicans who have settled here in the latest wave, but there's no denying the reality. Juárez is slowly emptying. And as in the past, whether Mexicans are fleeing a revolution, a peso crisis or rampant violence, they rarely return home after planting roots in McAllen, Laredo or El Paso.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/mexico/stories/DN-exodus_07int.ART.State.Edition2.4bc7fe1.htmlFamilies, businesses flee embattled Juárez for safer, greener pastures in U.S.... more
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Nelson Mandela has formed a group called The Elders to address causes of suffering around the globe. One area that the council, which includes such members as Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi , has been looking at is whether religions oppress women.
In responding to this new organization, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently observed that:
Paradoxically, the churches in Africa that have done the most to empower women have been conservative ones led by evangelicals and especially Pentecostals. In particular, Pentecostals encourage women to take leadership roles, and for many women this is the first time they have been trusted with authority and found their opinions respected. In rural Africa, Pentecostal churches are becoming a significant force to emancipate women.
This week's question is two-fold:
Do you think religions are a factor in the oppression of women? If so, how? If not, please explain your view.
Also, is Kristol right? Are Pentecostals ahead of the pack in encouraging women to take leadership roles?
STATEMENTS PROVIDED BY THE FOLLOWING-
1)KATIE SHERROD, Writer/film producer, progressive Episcopalian activist, Fort Worth
2)WILLIAM LAWRENCE, Dean, Perkins School of Theology and Professor of American Church History, Southern Methodist University
3)CYNTHIA RIGBY, W.C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
4)MATTHEW WILSON, Associate Professor of Political Science, SMU
5)AMY MARTIN, Executive Director, Earth Rhythms, Dallas
6)NITYANANDA CHANDRA DAS, Minister, ISKCON Kalachandji's Hare Krishna Temple Dallas
7)DARRELL BOCK, Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary
8)GEOFFREY DENNIS, Rabbi, Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound; faculty member, University of North Texas Jewish Studies Program
9)JOE CLIFFORD, Pastor, Head of Staff , First Presbyterian Church of Dallas
10)DANIEL KANTER, Senior minister, First Unitarian Church of Dallas
11)LARRY BETHUNE, Senior Pastor, University Baptist Church, Austin
12)RIC DEXTER, Men's Division Chapter Leader, Nichiren Buddhist Soka Gakkai lay organization
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/01/texas-faith-do-religions-oppre.htmlNelson Mandela has formed a group called The Elders to address causes of suffering... more
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'Tool of indoctrination'
Obama's speech has ignited partisan passions among conservative groups, which accused him of injecting politics in the classroom.
Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the conservative Cato Institute, said the lesson plans accompanying the speech are "troubling."
"Reasonable people can disagree" about Obama's policies, he said. "But they don't want their kids to be indoctrinated. This is potentially a tool of indoctrination."
Fred Moses, chairman of the Collin County Republican Party, said he had not heard anyone who was concerned about the speech.
"As long as the president is not talking about his agenda or policies, we all need to encourage our kids to do better," Moses said.
Barb Walters, president of the Texas Democratic Women of Collin County, contended the outrage is mostly manufactured.
"Emotions are running so high in politics," she said. "People are just shoving signs and fists into people's faces these days. Whatever happened to civil discourse?"
Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he doubted that Obama would risk criticism by giving a political speech.
"If this is simply a pep talk by the president of the United States to schoolkids," Sabato said, "to me that is in the category of mother and apple pie and the flag."
"thank the Lord my district will not air it".---Posted by espy'Tool of indoctrination'
Obama's speech has ignited partisan passions... more
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Amid turbulent times for U.S. workers, the Dallas-Fort Worth area job market has cruised along.
MELANIE BURFORD/DMN
A test is given at Baylor Heart and Vascular Hospital in Dallas. The health- care field is considered recession-proof.
The region added 68,000 jobs in the 12 months ended July 31, the most of any U.S. metropolitan area, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Just where are these jobs?
A Dallas Morning News analysis of regional employment statistics found that the private industries adding the most jobs were:
•Health care
•Construction
•Hotels, restaurants and bars
•Warehouse and distribution
•Employment services
"Probably the best place to ride out the recession is right here," said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas. "Houston and D-FW are the two best metro areas in the country."
Of course, not all local industries are hiring, but many Texas cities are faring better than the average U.S. city.
Texas as a whole led the nation in employment growth, adding 248,600 jobs and accounting for 43 percent of all U.S. job growth in the 12-month period, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
Industry experts caution that job growth is slowing and the outlook for the next 12 months is unclear.
Still, Dr. Weinstein thinks Texas and Dallas-Fort Worth can withstand a "fairly deep and fairly prolonged" national recession.
Amid turbulent times for U.S. workers, the Dallas-Fort Worth area job market has... more
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ivxx
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3 years ago
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Grapevine High School senior Anjali Datta holds the highest grade-point average of the 471 students graduating from Grapevine High School this year.
In fact, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school's history.
It's still not enough to make her the valedictorian, which brings a one-year college scholarship from the state.
Her closest competitor's GPA is 5.64. No one disputes that she's the top student in her class numerically. The problem rests with another number entirely.
Anjali rocketed through high school in only three years.
But a school district policy states: "The valedictorian shall be the eligible student with the highest weighted grade-point average for four years of high school."
The dispute over Anjali's status as valedictorian comes down to interpretation: Does four years mean calendar years of school attendance or does it mean completing the credits it takes most students four years to earn? Grapevine High School senior Anjali Datta holds the highest grade-point average of... more
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