Sunday, September 11, 2016

15 Years Later: Remembering Mildred Rose Naiman

 
Every year on this blog I repost this September 11th tribute as part of Project 2,996, an initiative that seeks to honor the memory of every one of the victims of the terrorist attack.

It is so important to keep the memory of those who died on 9/11 alive and to honor them. Individual lives can get lost in the intolerable and overwhelming number killed on 9/11, so we owe it to each of them to remember them as more than just one in 3,000:
Mildred Rose Naiman was 81 and from Andover, MA, the town next to my hometown. According to WBZ Boston, over 200 people with ties to Massachusetts died on 9-11-01.

"Millie," as she was known to her loved ones, was on her way to California to visit her 2 sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren when she was killed. She was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to be hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center.

Born on March 24, 1920, Mildred Naiman worked at Western Electric Co. as a tester. In her later years, she lived in a self-proclaimed "bachelorette pad" - her apartment in a retirement community - where she was active in planning and organizing events with her friends.

In a profile published on January 6, 2002, her daughter-in-law, Carol Naiman, told the New York Times, "She had a little bit of a lead foot. She had been stopped for speeding and was totally insulted the officer would give an old woman a ticket."

Although the feisty great-grandmother had had several knee replacement surgeries, cataracts, and other health problems, she still loved to travel. Her son Russ said, "If something was wrong with her, she'd go to the doctor and say, 'Fix me up; I've got a lot of traveling to do.' "

While she needed the help of a wheelchair at the airport, she still managed to visit her family twice a year. The Sunday before her fatal flight, a family member had asked if she was afraid of flying; her granddaughter, Hope, remembers her reply: "No, I've gone everywhere already--to Germany, the Bahamas. I'm not afraid to fly."

Incredibly, on July 24, 2004, the New York Post reported that the medical examiner's office had identified her remains. Many 9-11 victims are still unaccounted for. I hope her family gained some sense of closure with this discovery and was able to finally put her body to rest.

Today, on the anniversary of her death, we celebrate the life of Mildred Rose Naiman.

May she, and the others tragically murdered on that day, rest in peace.

9-11: NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Obama's Nuclear Deal with Iran in One Image


Yup, pretty much sums up the deal Obama made with one of our and our allies' biggest enemies in the world. More:

h/t:

Iran Releases Humiliating Images of U.S. Sailors in Captivity

More:

Iran Releases Video of U.S. Sailor Apologizing: ‘That Was Our Mistake’

This video apology was delivered despite Vice President Joe Biden‘s insistence that the U.S. government offered no apology, and Iran had sought none.
And proof this was directly related to the terrible nuke deal:

Iran says seizure of U.S. boats a lesson to 'troublemakers' in Congress



Friday, October 23, 2015

INFOGRAPHIC: How Law Enforcement Solves Crime Using Social Media

Interesting look at how law enforcement uses social media to solve crime.  For normal people, the rule is, don't post anything you don't want your mother to see. For politicos it's, don't post anything you don't want to see on the front page of the NY Times. For criminals it's, don't post anything you don't want the cops to use as evidence. Then again, I kind of want criminals stupid enough to post about their crimes on social media to get caught... So, criminals, please disregard that last rule and carry on! :D


Via: Sosinsky NYC Law Firm

Friday, September 11, 2015

Today, on the 14th Anniversary of her Death, We Celebrate the Life of Mildred Rose Naiman


Every year on this blog I repost this September 11th tribute as part of Project 2,996, an initiative that seeks to honor the memory of every one of the victims of the terrorist attack.

It is so important to keep the memory of those who died on 9/11 alive and to honor them. Individual lives can get lost in the intolerable and overwhelming number killed on 9/11, so we owe it to each of them to remember them as more than just one in 3,000:

Mildred Rose Naiman was 81 and from Andover, MA, the town next to my hometown. According to WBZ Boston, over 200 people with ties to Massachusetts died on 9-11-01.

"Millie," as she was known to her loved ones, was on her way to California to visit her 2 sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren when she was killed. She was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to be hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center.

Born on March 24, 1920, Mildred Naiman worked at Western Electric Co. as a tester. In her later years, she lived in a self-proclaimed "bachelorette pad" - her apartment in a retirement community - where she was active in planning and organizing events with her friends.

In a profile published on January 6, 2002, her daughter-in-law, Carol Naiman, told the New York Times, "She had a little bit of a lead foot. She had been stopped for speeding and was totally insulted the officer would give an old woman a ticket."

Although the feisty great-grandmother had had several knee replacement surgeries, cataracts, and other health problems, she still loved to travel. Her son Russ said, "If something was wrong with her, she'd go to the doctor and say, 'Fix me up; I've got a lot of traveling to do.' "

While she needed the help of a wheelchair at the airport, she still managed to visit her family twice a year. The Sunday before her fatal flight, a family member had asked if she was afraid of flying; her granddaughter, Hope, remembers her reply: "No, I've gone everywhere already--to Germany, the Bahamas. I'm not afraid to fly."

Incredibly, on July 24, 2004, the New York Post reported that the medical examiner's office had identified her remains. Many 9-11 victims are still unaccounted for. I hope her family gained some sense of closure with this discovery and was able to finally put her body to rest.

Today, on the anniversary of her death, we celebrate the life of Mildred Rose Naiman.

May she, and the others tragically murdered on that day, rest in peace.

9-11: NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET

 

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Thanks, Obama! It will take 80,000 troops to restore Iraq to where it was before Obama cut and ran

Dempsey

It's been almost three years since President Obama callously cut and ran from Iraq so he could proudly proclaim, “I ended the war in Iraq, as I promised," as he ran for reelection. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed he "viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests."

Panetta concluded that "to this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country." As predicted, because of Obama's actions, the country has fallen to Islamic terrorists, horrific violence, and more war.

So much has been lost to ISIS under Obama that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress on Thursday, "We're going to need about 80,000 competent Iraqi security forces to recapture territory lost, and eventually the city of Mosul, to restore the border."

America's top general also testified that because the Iraqi army is in such bad shape after losing its American support that he is considering sending in U.S. ground troops again:
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, indicated to the House of Representatives armed services committee that the strength of Isis relative to the Iraqi army may be such that he would recommend abandoning Obama’s oft-repeated pledge against returning US ground troops to combat in Iraq.

Retaking the critical city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, and re-establishing the border between Iraq and Syria that Isis has erased “will be fairly complex terrain” for the Iraqi security forces that the US is once again supporting, Dempsey acknowledged.

“I’m not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by US forces, but we’re certainly considering it,” he said.

... But should the Iraqi military prove unwilling to take back “al-Anbar province and Ninewa province” – the majority of territory in Iraq seized by Isis – or should the new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, exclude Sunnis from power, “I will have to adjust my recommendations,” Dempsey said.
Once again, if Obama had negotiated a responsible draw down that left provisional forces to protect our interests and progress, none of this would have happened.

Instead, Iraq will need 80,000 troops and additional U.S. ground troops to recover. Thanks, Obama!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Post-election poll confirms: Americans want Obama to go away

obamaSad

Last year, after the government shutdown, President Obama challenged, “If you don’t like my policies, go out there and win an election.”

Then last month, Obama infamously said of his liberal agenda, “Make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.”

Last Tuesday, the American people responded, handing Obama, his policies, and his party an historic defeat. But somehow the message Obama received is “to push hard to close some of these divisions, break through some of the gridlock, and get stuff done.”

If that was the message the voters sent, then it certainly wasn’t directed at Obama. A post-election poll from Gallup confirms that it is the GOP that the American people want to “get stuff done” – by a margin of 53% to 36%:
gallup
This is on the heels of a poll last month which found that 32% of registered voters planned to send a message of opposition to Obama’s agenda with their vote – the highest ever recorded by Gallup – with only 20% planning to send a message of support.

How many more ways can the American people tell Obama STOP! CEASE! DESIST! Obama only hears what he wants to hear, and it’s the sound of his own voice.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Reporter Sharyl Attkisson: CBS held Obama Benghazi quote that could have changed the election

benghazi1

Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed explosive information on Fox News Channel’s “MediaBuzz” that CBS worked unethically to help President Obama win reelection.

Of course, you remember the infamous moment in the second presidential debate when moderator Candy Crowley interjected to wrongly say that Obama had called the Benghazi attack an act of terror on September 12, 2012. It turns out CBS sat on a clip of the president refusing to call the attack terrorism in an interview with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” from September 12th.

Here is the exchange that CBS hid – even from Attkisson who was heavily involved in reporting the story – until the waning days of the election (emphasis mine):

KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word “terrorism” in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?
OBAMA: Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.

Instead, CBS repeatedly aired a more ambiguous clip from the interview that Attkisson used for an October 23rd segment on “CBS Evening News:”

SHARYL ATTKISSON, CBS INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Fourteen hours after the attack, President Obama sat down with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” for a previously scheduled interview and said he did not believe it was simply due to mob violence.
OBAMA: You’re right that this is not a situation that was exactly the same as what happened in Egypt. And my suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start.

Attkisson was outraged when she found out that CBS hid the footage from her and the American people at such a relevant time:
Attkisson said, “Let me say that that exchange should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time. It was exclusive to CBS. It would have to me proven Romney’s point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret.”

“I was covering Benghazi, nobody told me we had it and directed me from the ‘Evening News’ to a different clip of the same interview to give the impression that the president had done the opposite. And it was only right before the election that somebody kind of leaked out the transcript to others of us as CBS and we were really shocked. We saw that was something very unethical done to have kept that up.”

She added, “The ‘Evening News’ people who had access to that transcript, according to the emails that I saw when it was sent from ’60 Minutes’ to ‘Evening News’ the very day it was taken, they, in my view, skipped over it, passed it up, kept it secret. And I think that was because they were trying to defend the president and they thought that would be harmful to him.”
H/T Breitbart

Thursday, October 23, 2014

How "How to Get Away with Murder" Gets Away with Murder in its Depictions of Gay Sex

Warning: As you might have guessed by the blog title, graphic discussion to follow.


I'd noticed that the fall's hottest new show "How to Get Away with Murder" has had an usual focus on its gay character Connor Walsh and his sex life, but last week's episode "Let's Get to Scooping" that aired on October 16, 2014 was so out-of-control, over-the-top, and in-your-face that I knew there was something else at play.

The episode featured a graphic, kinda rough and dominant gay sex scene followed by a character saying THREE TIMES, “He did this thing to my ass that made my eyes water" - it was repeated because it was part of a recorded conversation, but inclusion of that line when the tape was replayed was so COMPLETELY unnecessary that I could only conclude its purpose was to provoke. A quick Google search instantly confirmed my suspicions:

How To Get Away With Murder Creator: Get Used to Two Men Kissing:
Out TV writer/producer Peter Nowalk is using the gay character in the show he created, How To Get Away With Murder, to push his gay agenda. ...

Do it, man. Keep it going. Desensitize the shit out of viewers.
Gee, thanks, Gawker ...

So it WAS purposefully out-of-control, over-the-top, and in-your-face. In fact, the creator Peter Nowalk told E!Online:
"I knew I wanted to push the envelope, especially with the gay sex," Nowalk explained to me. "And to me, writing the gay characterization and writing some real gay sex into a network show is to right the wrong of all of the straight sex that you see on TV. Because I didn't see that growing up, and I feel like the more people get used to two men kissing, the less weird it will be for people. I just feel like it's a lack of vision that you don't see it on TV, but ABC has never had a note about any of the weird stuff in the show, so I'm gonna keep it going."
Wow. He wants to "right the wrong" of straight sex on TV. Dude, seriously? I am so sick and tired of TV shows pushing their radical liberal agenda on viewers. But Nowalk goes so far above and beyond the typical encouragement of tolerance of gay relationships and marriage, he is pushing us to accept and celebrate gay sex! (BTW, you know what I didn't see growing up? Any TV roles depicting smart, strong, conservative women shown in a positive light - not liberal fantasies of what a conservative woman should believe, ala Calista Flockhart in Brothers and Sisters. When can we right that wrong?)

Furthermore, there is rarely a reason for any kind of sex to be on network TV shows except to be titillating and "progressive." I guess TV producers feel like they've pushed as far as they can go with straight sex for sensationalism that now they have to exploit gay sex. I told Shonda Rhimes as much and surprisingly she responded to me:





The editor of a gay entertainment website seemed to agree that some of the gay sex scenes "felt a little craven:"
Maybe my unease with the show is that, so far, it depicts gay intimacy as something shocking rather than natural and universally relate-able.

How to Get Away with Murder and other Shonda Rhimes shows are definitely unsettling conservative viewers with gay content. Which may be a great thing– but less of a great thing when it inadvertently reinforces the stereotype that gay men are hyper-sexual creatures. ...

The remedy for the lack of gay representation in television maybe isn’t to load it up all in one series. Can’t we spread it out a bit? Having so much Connor action in HTGAWM and so little everywhere else on the TV dial feels a little like gay gerrymandering.
(This writer also had me laughing when he said, 'But I find myself cringing when his onscreen conquests say things like “he did this thing to my ass that made my eyes water.” What, did he stick an onion up there or something?')

So, to all who say, "Don't like it, don't watch it," fine, I won't, although, maybe I'll follow along by reading spoilers online. Sucks that the show has forced me into that choice by having a mission that seems to be to make viewers uncomfortable, "unsettled," and "desensitized" in some bizarre reverse micro-aggression fantasy.* But it's their loss to alienate a viewer in the coveted women with disposable income aged 18-34 demographic.

BTW, I watched the episode on the Watch ABC app where I was bombarded with J.C. Penny commercials at each break. So, good job on advertisement placement, J.C. Penny, I now associate you with eye-watering anal.

*This isn't my only reason to stop watching. I also hate every character on the show and find myself rolling my eyes every other minute at some smug and pretentious piece of dialogue, implausible and ridiculous "legal" breakthrough, or frustrating and incomprehensible character action. Also, this kid's dumb facial expressions:

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Never Forget: Honoring 9/11 Victim Mildred Rose Naiman


It is so important to keep the memory of those who died on 9/11 alive and to honor them. Individual lives can get lost in the intolerable and overwhelming number killed on 9/11, so we owe it to each of them to remember them as more than just one in 3,000.

Every year on this blog I repost this September 11th tribute as part of Project 2,996, an initiative that seeks to honor the memory of every one of the victims of the terrorist attack:

Mildred Rose Naiman was 81 and from Andover, MA, the town next to my hometown. According to WBZ Boston, over 200 people with ties to Massachusetts died on 9-11-01.

"Millie," as she was known to her loved ones, was on her way to California to visit her 2 sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren when she was killed. She was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to be hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center.

Born on March 24, 1920, Mildred Naiman worked at Western Electric Co. as a tester. In her later years, she lived in a self-proclaimed "bachelorette pad" - her apartment in a retirement community - where she was active in planning and organizing events with her friends.

In a profile published on January 6, 2002, her daughter-in-law, Carol Naiman, told the New York Times, "She had a little bit of a lead foot. She had been stopped for speeding and was totally insulted the officer would give an old woman a ticket."

Although the feisty great-grandmother had had several knee replacement surgeries, cataracts, and other health problems, she still loved to travel. Her son Russ said, "If something was wrong with her, she'd go to the doctor and say, 'Fix me up; I've got a lot of traveling to do.' "

While she needed the help of a wheelchair at the airport, she still managed to visit her family twice a year. The Sunday before her fatal flight, a family member had asked if she was afraid of flying; her granddaughter, Hope, remembers her reply: "No, I've gone everywhere already--to Germany, the Bahamas. I'm not afraid to fly."

Incredibly, on July 24, 2004, the New York Post reported that the medical examiner's office had identified her remains. Many 9-11 victims are still unaccounted for. I hope her family gained some sense of closure with this discovery and was able to finally put her body to rest.

Today, on the anniversary of her death, we celebrate the life of Mildred Rose Naiman.

May she, and the others tragically murdered on that day, rest in peace.

9-11: NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET