GOVERNOR ORDERS U.S. AND STATE FLAGS TO BE LOWERED IN COMMEMORATION OF SPECIALIST STEPHAN
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin issued a proclamation ordering all U.S. and state flags displayed at state facilities be lowered to half-staff the entire day of Friday, December 31, 2010 in memory of Stephan Charles Stearns.
Stearns enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2008 and achieved the rank of specialist.
Stearns served on active duty at Fort Bragg, NC as a member of the 27th Engineer Battalion, 618th Engineer Support Company.
Stearns died an unexpected and natural death while visiting his family in Point Pleasant, WV for the holidays.
“Specialist Stearns’ commitment and dedication to serving his country brings honor to his family, the citizens of WV, and his country. We mourn the tragic death of this young soldier,” said Governor Tomblin.
Stearns is survived by his wife, Rachel Stearns, a daughter, Kylie McKenna Faith Wilmoth, a daughter, Christin Cheyenne Stearns, his parents, Richard and Janet Parsons, his father, Charles Stearns, his sister, Susan Caroll Thomas, his sister, Staci Caye Grimm, his brother, Richard Parsons, Jr., his brother Garrett Stearns, and his extended family.
Teachers at Normantown Elementary School dressed as sets of twins to celebrate Red Ribbon Week-Drug Free.
(L-R) Julie Allen Title I, Pam Minigh 1st grade, Heather Phares Sp. Ed., Tena Church 3rd grade,
Jane Smith 2nd grade, Julie Stewart 4/5 grade and Tammy Moore 5/6 grade
Students participated in various activities this week including a red balloon launch on Friday.
Filling up at the pump is getting more and more expensive.
Gas prices here in West Virginia have skyrocketed in the past two weeks. They’ve increased by more than 20 cents a gallon.
American Petroleum Institute Senior Economist Sara Banaszak says there are several reasons why.
“Crude oil, which is 70% of what you pay at the pump and what we use to make gasoline, has gone up in price internationally.“ She says what happens on the worldwide market impacts us right here at home.
“When we get back to economic growth in the U.S. and globally, there’s going to be pressure on oil prices again and that’s what we’re seeing happening.“
Banaszak says it all comes down to supply and demand. The U.S. remains the largest consumer of gasoline in the world. Developing nations like India and China, though, are using more and more fuel each year, creating more demand and less supply. That drives up the cost.
Industry analysts predict we’ll be paying in the $3.10 to $3.20 range for most of 2011. But Banaszak says don’t be surprised if the price goes beyond those levels every once in a while.
“Something happens to a major oil producer, a super-hot summer where everyone has to burn a lot more fuel that way, those things can still affect this outlook,“ she said on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline.
Even though prices of other products are now on their way back up as well, Banaszak says increases to the price of gas get much more attention.
“People say they’ll drive 50 miles to buy gas at a penny less a gallon. But then they’ll go inside the convenience store and buy a Coke and a candy bar and plunk down whatever it takes to get that. I think, partly, it’s the posting of the prices in very large letters.“
Currently a barrel of oil is going for $97. During the summer of 2008, when we were shelling out more than $4 for a gallon of gas, that same barrel cost $140.
Pioneers Fall to Nationally Ranked Northern Kentucky
The Glenville State College Pioneer Men’s basketball team lost their game on the road to the nationally ranked Northern Kentucky University on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 by a 59-96 score.
The Pioneers got down early as the Northern Kentucky scored 46 first half points and shot a 66% from the floor to lead at halftime, 46-35.
• Justin Caldwell with 20 points and 2 assists
• Nick Dent added 12 points for the Pioneers
• Jonathan Bevins chipped in with 10 points and a team high 5 rebounds
Pioneers now with record of 2-7 (2-4) for the year, will return to action Wednesday, January 05, 2011 as they travel to take on Shepherd University. Tipoff is set for 8:00 PM.
Official Men’s Basketball Box Score
Glenville State vs. Northern Kentucky
Wednesday, 12.29.2010 1:00 PM at Highland Heights, KY
WV Republican Party Chair Criticizes Acting Governor
WV Republican Party Chair Criticizes Acting Governor
The Chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party says he is not happy with plans to create an Acting Senate President position in the state Senate and put Marshall County Senator Jeff Kessler in it next month.
“(Acting Governor) Earl Ray Tomblin didn’t have, sort of, the political strength to be able to do the right thing and the Legislature is moving to the left, under (Senator) Kessler,“ Mike Stuart said on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline of this week’s Senate leadership developments.
Earlier this week, Senator Kessler announced he had secured enough support from his fellow Senators to make the rule changes necessary to form the role of Acting Senate President. That will happen when the 2011 Regular Legislative Session opens on January 12, 2010.
Kessler, who has most recently served as Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, plans to fill that new role now that Senate President Tomblin is serving as Acting Governor. In a statement this week, Tomblin indicated he will not stand in the way of such a move.
Stuart is critical of Tomblin, saying he has handled the whole situation the wrong way.
“He (Tomblin) should have called a Special Election at the outset, instead of running from the fear of being on the ballot for fear he can’t win, which is probably correct,“ he said.
The West Virginia Republican Party Chair claims West Virginians are now going to be represented by two more liberal bodies at the State House, both the state Senate and the state House of Delegates, because the Acting Governor wanted to serve two years from the Governor’s Office before actually running for the office.
“He’s an unelected governor who is not governing by the will of the people and the Constitution is very clear, we need a Special Election. We need one soon,“ Stuart said.
Kessler has denied claims that he will move the state Senate to the left as Acting Senate President.
A lawsuit calling on the state Supreme Court to order a Special Gubernatorial Election for early next year is pending.
Tomblin became Acting Governor, earlier this year, when former Governor Joe Manchin became a U.S. Senator. He has said he does not believe a Special Election is needed before 2012.
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman has awarded grants worth more than $1.55 million to 36 recipients through the Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan Recycling Assistance Grants program.
Huffman presented the 2011 grants during a ceremony at the DEP’s Charleston headquarters last week.
Grants were awarded to state solid waste authorities, county commissions, municipalities, private industries and nonprofit organizations.
Funding for the Recycling Assistance Program is generated through the $1 assessment fee per ton of solid waste disposed at in-state landfills.
Following is the grant recipients in our area:
RITCHIE COUNTY
Ritchie County Commission - $40,000 - To assist with the installation of a truss roof for the Ritchie County Recycling Center.
Ritchie County Solid Waste Authority - $61,555 - To purchase a used box truck, baler and overhead bay door and to provide support for the countywide program.
In 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church called “Beyond Vietnam,” where he declared that his conscience would not allow him to remain silent on the question of Vietnam, on the horrors of war, on the threat of violence to our existence. In this speech he pointed out the irony that young men of color were welcomed to join the military in order to burn villages and kill the people of Vietnam in the name of a democracy and of freedoms not yet granted to them in the country for which they fought. They could kill and wreak havoc side by side with white Americans in combat abroad, but they could not sit by one another in the same school or eat together at the same restaurant back home.
I could not help but be reminded of this speech when a colleague suggested that the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” legislation showed that, again in King’s words, “the arc of the universe bends toward justice.” But this colleague left out the most important word in that sentence: “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.” What is “moral” about war? War is and always will be immoral because it demands that we violate the first principle of moral conduct: thou shalt not kill. And while it is moral and right to stand firmly for conscience, which the lesbian and gay community achieves by not hiding their sexual identity, preferring to be open about whom they love, it is the moral right of no one to wage war and to kill.
Members of the lesbian and gay communities, this legislation is not a step toward justice. Marriage would be justice. Ensuring funding to eradicate anti-gay or anti-lesbian hate crimes would be justice. Serving in the military openly? Sure, it is a victory. It was fought for, tooth and nail, and won. It represents a new generation for whom sexual identity is, politically, a non-issue. It could even possibly chip away at the war system from within if one is apt to believe that homophobia breeds militarism. But please, friends, do not call it justice. Remembering King once more, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and drone attacks on Pakistani villages carried out by US service men and women–regardless of their sexual identity–is and can never be justice. Never. We are not thinking only of the victims on the receiving end of this violence: as David Swanson recently wrote in his superb “War is a Lie,” those “who survive war are far more likely now to have been trained and conditioned to do things they cannot live with having done.”
On the other hand, we stand to learn something from the successful campaign to end sexual discrimination in the military, precisely by being aware of this deep contradiction, by realizing that this victory in the matter of sexual identity was purchased at the cost of a much greater sacrifice - the matter of conscience about war. Don’t ask about the families of the people in Afghanistan. Don’t ask if they love life or have children the age of your children. Don’t ask if they may have the capacity to love even the ones who have bombed their village. Don’t tell that you question the motives of the government who sent you abroad to wage war. Don’t tell that you are scared to death. Don’t tell that you have nightmares. Don’t tell that you think of committing suicide upon returning home, if not before. Don’t tell that you are lost, isolated. Because asking and telling such facts opens up the possibility of ending a military career — and in time, who knows, ending militarism itself through the power of truth.
Violence is the weakest possible force for change we have available to us, and the most destructive to those who use it. It does not take a strong person to use violence, nor does it leave one stronger for using it. Don’t tell anyone about this…
Dr. King said that we have a choice: nonviolence or nonexistence. Only a person who has understood nonviolence would be willing to give up their career for conscience; to render service to a country by building up and not tearing down, to make a lasting contribution to the whole of justice, not only what feels like a kind of justice for oneself.
It has often been our observation that we of a progressive persuasion can be easily fooled by our relatively narrow focus on equality for one or another group, forgetting the question of equality for all. Poor people can step up economically by being conditioned to kill for the state; now lesbians and gays can emerge from a social shadow (and we do not minimize the value of this) by undergoing a far deeper kind of dehumanization. These are Pyrrhic victories. Let us not rejoice until we have won the only kind of victory that endures: the victory of everyone over the violence that hurts us all.
~~ By Michael Nagler - the President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, and Stephanie Van Hook - Co-Director ~~
It has been some 130 years since the first European Jewish settlement was established here with the explicit aim of taking over the country. The few thousand native Palestinian (Arab) Jews did not support Zionism. Christians and Muslims resisted it over the decades, mostly by non-violent popular resistance as I detailed in my just released book, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment. This popular resistance included at least 15 waves of uprisings called intifadas in the past few decades. The results of both the violent colonial settler activity and the resistance to it have been mixed.
The last six decades witnessed the development of a militarized Jewish state that subsists on (mostly US) security-related exports and foreign aid (mostly from the west). Millions of Jews from around the world settled here in place of millions of ethnically cleansed Palestinians (see Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine). Seven of the 11 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people. Remaining Palestinians are allowed to live on only 8.3% of historic Palestine and those shrinking areas are increasingly surrounded by walls that in the description of visiting South African leaders make this system of segregation (called Hafrada in Hebrew, apartheid in Afrikaaner) far worse than the system that existed in South Africa.
Yet, Israeli leaders and policy makers contend that the problem is not their policy but need of more public relations campaigns. Their constant lamentations about the “delegitimization of Israel” is disingenuous since they are the ones who delegitimize this enterprise by persistent violations of international and humanitarian law. What do they expect when Israeli armed forces murder 1,400 Palestinians and demolish thousands of homes and many schools and hospitals in a span of three weeks as they did in Gaza (starting 27 December 2008)? What do they expect when they continue to keep millions of refugees and displaced people from exercising their internationally recognized right of return to their homes and lands? Why should a refugee be denied her right to return to her home and land for being a Christian or a Muslim while any Jewish convert is given rights to come and live on stolen land and get automatic citizenship? Why do I as a Palestinian Christian get denied entry to my city of Jerusalem only five miles away while it is slowly being transformed via meticulous ethnic cleansing and Jewish settlement activity?
Tremendous changes came about since the issuance in 2005 of the Palestinian society call to action which read in part: “We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era” (bdsmovement.net). Since this call was issued, there were thousands of boycott actions around the world. In five years, we progressed more than in three decades in South Africa.
We in Palestine are also encouraged that this is the first such situation in history where international participation is not just from abroad but by thousands coming to Palestine annually. A recent example is the Gaza freedom flotilla with hundreds of courageous activists from more than 30 countries. This Christmas, hundreds of activists joined us in Bethlehem to call for an end to Israeli apartheid and distributed thousands of Christmas cards that have this headline: “Peace on Earth: Even in Palestine?” Hundreds of thousands of Christians have now read and began acting on the call issued a year ago by us Palestinian Christians calling for a stand for truth and for peace (www.kairospalestine.ps) Thanks to the internet and openings in mainstream media, more and more people around the world have come to understand what this manufactured conflict is all about. More and more people are questioning Western governments’ foreign policies that seem tailored to satisfy lobbyists for Israel rather than serve the people.
Here in Bethlehem were we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, we yearn for a just and durable peace. Like that good teacher 2,000 years ago who spoke truth to power without worrying about reprisal, we believe the power structures will collapse and the word of truth will remain and grow. We will thus continue to work to build bridges and challenge walls (both physical and metaphysical). We believe peace based on justice for the dispossessed Palestinians will be good for all people who inhabit this historically burdened land and for the world at large.
~~ By Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD - a Professor at Bethlehem University ~~
Directions:
In a 3-quart microwave-safe bowl, combine the butter, oil, curry powder, cumin and cayenne.
Cover loosely with a paper towel to avoid splatter, then microwave on high for 30 seconds, or until the butter is nearly melted.
Whisk the spices and butter together.
Add the almonds, cashews, peanuts and coconut to the bowl and toss to coat.
Microwave, uncovered, on high for 2 minutes.
Stir well, then microwave, stirring every 2 minutes, until the nuts and coconut are lightly browned and fragrant, 4 to 6 minutes longer, depending on the wattage of the microwave.
Stir in the mango.
Transfer the mixture to a baking sheet to cool.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Dear Father, it’s amazing the power a word holds.
I remember the strength a word from my friends gave me when I was feeling low; and the word of congratulation and praise that lifted me up.
Their word came from the heart and touched mine.
Your Word, Father, comes from your heart—for us all.
A Word about forgiveness, healing, freedom, loving-kindness.
There are many times when we don’t listen to other people—the ears hear, but the heart doesn’t.
Help us listen with our heart.
Please don’t stop sharing your Word even when we are filled with other concerns that block our listening.
Help me hear your Word as it comes through loving family and friends and the goodness of my day.
1 John 2:18-21. Let heaven and earth exult in joy! —Ps 95(96):1-2, 11-13. John 1:1-18.
Mary L. Wheeler
Age 75, of Leeson Run Community, Greenwood, WV, died Wednesday, December 29, 2010, at the Ohio Valley Medical Center, Wheeling, WV.
She was born May 05, 1935, near Grantsville, WV, the daughter of the late Porter L. and Cassie B. Wilson Reese.
Mary Lou worked at the former Shepherd Nursing Home, Ellenboro, WV, she was a member of Ruley Chapel Church, on Aronld’s Creek Road.
She is survived by two sons, Randy Reese and Gary Wheeler, both of Greenwood, WV; one daughter, Brenda Todd, Greenwood, WV; six grandchildren, Randall, Brittnie and Dolton Reese, Tonya, Robert and Pam Todd; four great grandchildren.
In addition to her parents, she is preceded in death by four brothers, Ford, Leo, Charles and Glen Reese; two sisters, Christina Britton and Arlene Hoalcraft.
Funeral services will be held Sunday, January 02, 2011, from the McCullough-Rogers Funeral Home, Pennsboro, WV, at 2:00 PM with the Pastor Ovid Lee Pernell officiating.
Burial will follow in the Nobe Cemetery.
Friends may call at the funeral home Saturday, January 01, 2011, from 4:00-8:00 PM and after 11:00 AM on Sunday.
Kathleen Mildred Murphy
Age 81, formerly of Criss Manor, Weston,, died Saturday, December 25, 2010 at Crestview Manor, Jane Lew, following an extended illness.
She was born June 29, 1929, in Lewis County, a daughter of the late Oswell Messenger and Flora Neal Messenger.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Argle J. Murphy on June 23, 1985; five brothers, Lawrence Messenger, Clarence Messenger, Russell Messenger, Clifford Messenger and Hartzel Messenger; and four sisters, Zana Messenger Matthew, Stacie Messenger Murphy and two infant sisters.
She is survived by one son, William L. Murphy and wife Rebecca of Vienna; one daughter, Cattie L. Fortner of South Charleston; one sister, Gladis Messenger Rinehart of Jane Lew; one brother; Bernard Messenger of Euclid, Ohio; four grandchildren; 5 step-grandchildren; one great-grandchild; eight step-great-grandchildren; a very special friend, Sylvia Hughes; and several nieces and nephews.
Kathleen was an active member of the Lewis County Senior Center, working as a hostess and performing other duties.
She also enjoyed singing in the Senior Center choir. She was a member of the local singles group.
Friends may call from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM Friday, December 31, at Boyle Funeral Home, 322 Main Avenue, Weston.
Funeral services will be held at 1:00 PM Friday, December 31, at the Boyle Funeral Home Chapel.
Interment will follow in Messenger Cemetery, Gilmer County.
Larry Glen Cochran, Sr.
Age 68, of Sutton quietly passed away Christmas afternoon at his home on Erbacon Road., 87, of Little Birch, WV.
Larry was born in Webster County, WV on February 17, 1942, the son of the late Glen and Rosalie Cochran.
He worked and lived most of his life in Ohio retiring from the Ford Motor Company.
Proceeding him in death were his parents, and a sister Cordella Hall.
He is survived by his his loving wife Plessa and their children Leslie Sandy, Larry Cochran, Jr.and wife Marlena all of Sutton, Lynn Ellison and husband Michael of Summersville, and Trenton Cochran and wife Brandy of Wellington, OH., his grandchildren, Elizabeth, Peyton, Joe, Ashlee, Tiara, Darean, and Mika and great-grandchild Naomi. Brothers; Lynn Cochran of Diana, WV, Henry Cochran of Wellington, OH., 2 sisters, Vee Cruz of Ashtabula, OH., and Brenda Cochran of Geneva,OH.
At Larry’s request there will be no public service held.
Paul Edward Stoner
Age 85, of Horner, died Wednesday, December 22, 2010, at his residence.
He was born May 07, 1925, in Brickerville, PA, a son of the late Irvin Stoner, Sr. and Alice Fausnaught Stoner.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Jacqueline Rose Stark Stoner on November 23, 2007; three brothers, Irvin Stoner, Jr., Robert Stoner and Charles Stoner; and a sister, Mary.
He is survived by one son, Stuart A. Stoner of Horner; and three sisters, Elsie Moyer and Betty Bear, both of Lebanon, Pa., and Trudy Good and husband John of Lancaster, PA.
Paul was a WWII and Korean War veteran, serving 20 years combined in the United States Navy and United States Army.
After retiring from the military, he went on to work as a mechanic on heavy machinery.
He was a member of the Franklin AF & AM lodge, Buckhannon, and Buckhannon VFW Post# 3663.
Cremation services provided by Boyle Funeral Home, Weston.
Today is Friday, Dec. 31, the 365th and final day of 2010.
Thought for Today: “Though the past haunt me as a spirit, I do not ask to forget.“ - Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans, English poet (1793-1835).
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 31, 1775, during the Revolutionary War, the British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery was killed.
On this date:
In 1857, Britain’s Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
In 1879, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.
In 1909, the Manhattan Bridge, spanning the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, was officially opened to vehicular traffic.
In 1946, President Harry S. Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
In 1969, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, was shot to death along with his wife and daughter in their Clarksville, Pa., home by hit men acting under the orders of UMWA president Tony Boyle.
In 1970, Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit in London’s High Court against his fellow Beatles to officially dissolve their partnership.
In 1985, singer Rick Nelson, 45, and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year’s Eve performance in Dallas.
In 1986, 97 people were killed when fire broke out in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Three hotel workers later pleaded guilty in connection with the blaze.)
In 1990, football coach George Allen died in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., at age 72. (Allen was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002.)
In 1997, Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.
Ten years ago:
• President Bill Clinton authorized the United States to sign a treaty creating the world’s first permanent international war crimes tribunal to bring to justice people accused of crimes against humanity.
• Former US Sen. Alan Cranston died in Los Altos, Calif., at age 86. Flamenco dancer Jose Greco died in Lancaster, Pa., at age 82.
Five years ago:
• In central Indonesia, suspected Islamic militants set off a powerful bomb at a busy market frequented by Christians, killing seven people.
• Dick Clark, in his first television appearance since his stroke in 2004, helped ring in the new year in Times Square.
One year ago:
• A lone gunman dressed in black killed five people in Espoo, Finland, four at a crowded shopping mall, before returning home and taking his own life.
Today’s Birthdays:
TV producer George Schlatter is 81
Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins is 73
Actor Tim Considine (“My Three Sons”) is 70
Actress Sarah Miles is 69
Rock musician Andy Summers is 68
Actor Sir Ben Kingsley is 67
Producer-director Taylor Hackford is 66
Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is 64
Actor Tim Matheson is 63
Pop singer Burton Cummings (The Guess Who) is 63
Singer Donna Summer is 62
Actor Joe Dallesandro is 62
Rock musician Tom Hamilton (Aerosmith) is 59
Actor James Remar is 57
Actress Bebe Neuwirth is 52
Actor Val Kilmer is 51
Singer Paul Westerberg is 51
Actor Don Diamont is 48
Rock musician Ric Ivanisevich (Oleander) is 48
Rock musician Scott Ian (Anthrax) is 47
Actress Gong Li is 45
Author Nicholas Sparks is 45
Actor Lance Reddick is 41
Pop singer Joe McIntyre is 38
Rock musician Mikko Siren (Apocalyptica) is 35
Rock musician Bob Bryar (My Chemical Romance) is 31
The Gilmer County Volunteer Fire Department Support Group will be hosting a COMMUNITY NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY on Friday, December 31, 2010 at Glenville Station.
There will not be an admission charge for this alcohol and drug free party.
Our goal is to have a safe and family friendly place to gather this New Year’s Eve.
For $0.50 a card, guests can play money bingo.
There will be plenty of games for anyone not wishing to play Bingo to play as well.
Snacks will be provided, but we are asking that if all possible, anyone who attends bring a bottle of pop or a bag of chips.
If you have any questions, please call Support Group President, Charlotte Radcliff at 304.804.2021.
This year’s Fall Forest Fire Season has been on par with the last few despite extremely dry conditions at the start of October.
As of earlier this month, the West Virginia Division of Forestry recorded 353 fires, charring 10,520 acres of land. Assistant State Forester Ben Webster calls those numbers “average” for a fall season.
“The numbers will continue to fluctuate, but there has not been a drastic increase. Actually, for the past couple of years, we’ve seen a constant decline.“
Webster says the major concern going into the season was the Eastern Panhandle where a drought was declared earlier in the Summer. The potential for major forest fires was dampened, though, just as the season started on October first by a drenching rain.
But Webster stresses that area is still not out of the dry woods yet.
“Due to the severity of the drought there in the Eastern Panhandle, we still have not recovered from that. It could lead to the possibility of increased activity come this Spring Fire Season,“ he told MetroNews.
Foresters say it can take months, even years, for the water table to return to normal after a severe drought. And, until that happens, the Eastern Panhandle will be a hot spot for potential blazes.
Meanwhile, the top three fall forest fire causes are arson, out of control debris burns and blazes started by equipment.
Webster says the most disturbing are those arson cases, 93% of which happened in the two Southern districts. “These are people who are intentionally going out and setting the hills of West Virginia on fire. We can’t really give a definite answer as to why they’re doing it.“
But Webster stresses, every year, the state’s three Division of Forestry arson investigators along with two blood hounds are zeroing in on the culprits.
“Their ability to catch and prosecute these individuals is going up every year just due to the training and the knowledge of our forestry staff,“ he said.
The official end to the Fall Forest Fire Season is December 31, 2010.
TechNews: Apple and App Makers Hit with Privacy Lawsuits
Consumers who say their personal information has been sent to advertisers without their knowledge have launched a legal battle against Apple and the makers of some of its most popular apps, the latest skirmish in the fight over the boundaries of privacy online.
Two new class-action suits filed last week in U.S. District Court in California name the creators of Backflip, Dictionary.com, Pandora and the Weather Channel, among others, in addition to Apple.
The suits follow attempts by federal regulators and lawmakers to set clear standards in the rapidly evolving - and often murky - world of digital data.
“Users ought to have control over the amount of data that is sent of their activities,“ said a lawyer who is working on the case. “It’s an invasion of their privacy, and it’s done without their consent.
The suits said personal information at risk included users’ ages, gender and location along with a unique device identifying number, or UDID, that Apple assigns to all iPhones and iPads.
The complaint mirrors the findings of an investigation published this month by the Wall Street Journal that found many of the most popular apps distributed such data to third-party advertising networks without consumers’ knowledge or consent - and at times in violation of Apple’s privacy policy.
Apple and Pandora declined to comment on the lawsuits.
The Weather Channel did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Backflip and Dictionary.com couldn’t immediately be reached.
Several app makers told the Wall Street Journal that they only aggregate the data and do not link it to individual users.
The Mobile Marketing Association, an industry trade group, announced last week that it is crafting privacy guidelines for data collection and use and said the industry was committed to transparency.
Washington policymakers have struggled to keep pace with the overflowing stream of information transmitted online, and mobile devices such as the iPhone represent the latest frontier.
A Senate subcommittee held a hearing on the issue over the summer, and Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) has sought privacy legislation for consumers.
Then, in a report this month, the Federal Trade Commission criticized the industry as “too slow” in establishing privacy standards and said it has “failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.“
The agency also found that consumers are shouldering too much of the burden in protecting themselves, particularly when privacy disclosures, if they exist, can be difficult to find and understand. It suggested allowing consumers to choose how much of their personal information to share by creating a do-not-track system similar to its popular do-not-call list.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department issued guidelines for balancing consumer privacy with mobile innovation.
The report called for a “Privacy Bill of Rights” for consumers and codes of conduct for businesses - and consequences for violating them.
The lawsuits “illustrate what consumer groups have been telling Congress, the FTC and the White House: The same rampant data collection techniques threatening privacy on the Internet have been purposely migrated to our mobile phones,“ said the founder and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer advocacy group.
He said his suit does not seek to stop the companies from accessing and distributing consumers’ data. Instead, the suit is looking for greater transparency and control.
“It’s not, ‘Is it bad to transfer information about somebody?‘ “ He said. ”It’s, ‘Is it bad to do it without their knowing about it and having a choice in it?‘ “
“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”—James Madison
After a lawsuit and pressure from private interest groups, the Justice Department finally released a 617-page report detailing how the American government not only welcomed but employed Nazis after World War II. Although this might appear to be ancient history, this report is perhaps more relevant to our age than it might seem. After all, if our benevolent government leaders—part of the so-called “greatest generation”—brought Nazis home to roost back then and enlisted them in subjecting Americans to all manner of experiments, what are they capable of doing to us now?
Take Project Paperclip, for example. Few have heard of it because the U.S. government has successfully concealed most of the facts surrounding the project. The government has passed it off as a short-term operation limited to an innocent investigation of Germany’s scientists after World War II. In reality, Project Paperclip was the largest and longest-running operation involving Nazis in the history of the United States, and its effects are still being felt today.
At the close of World War II, U.S. officials and the Allied countries discovered that Germany had achieved a technological superiority far beyond what they had imagined. In Nazi Germany, 20,000 scientists had revolutionized the weapons of war, and reports written by Allied investigators described the Germans’ “astonishing achievement” and “superb inventions.” In order to learn about the new German technology and weaponry, Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States began transporting German experts to their respective countries for interrogation. The Cold War was just beginning, and U.S. officials were determined to use any means necessary to keep the scientists responsible for Germany’s scientific supremacy out of Russian hands. At the same time, they aimed to acquire a technological lead against Russia. Thus, the United States began recruiting Nazi scientists.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman authorized Project Paperclip, a program designed to bring selected German scientists to work for the United States during the Cold War. However, Truman expressly forbade anyone found to have been “a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism.” The War Department’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) was to conduct background investigations of the scientists, to be approved by the State Department.
Against Truman’s orders, however, the JIOA, Army intelligence and the CIA concealed incriminating information about the Germans they were hiring. Many of the 1,600 scientific and research specialists and their dependents brought to America under Project Paperclip had been deeply involved in Nazi society during the war. However, some U.S. officials, determined to recruit these men, sidestepped the problem of their Nazi backgrounds by “cleansing” and re-writing their information files to eliminate incriminating evidence. As a way of identifying the German scientists, American officials put an ordinary paperclip on their personnel files—thus the origin of the operation’s name.
While official American policy after the war was to prosecute war criminals for the atrocities committed under Adolf Hitler, many sectors of the U.S. government concealed incriminating evidence in order to bring these individuals into the U.S.
For example, Wernher von Braun was described in early security evaluations as “a serious potential security threat.” He had been a member of the SS and risen to the rank of major under Hitler. From 1937 to 1945, he was the technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center in Germany, where the V-2 rocket was developed. When von Braun was brought to the United States in 1948, his file was re-written: “No derogatory information is available on the subject. He does not constitute a security threat to the United States.” Von Braun worked on guided missiles for the U.S. Army and later became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1970, he became NASA’s associate administrator.
Arthur Rudolf was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where, according to Tom Bower in The Paperclip Conspiracy, 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings and starvation. A member of the Nazi Party since 1931, Rudolf’s 1945 security evaluation read: “100% Nazi, dangerous type, security threat.” However, when the JIOA took an interest in Rudolf’s scientific work, it changed his dossier to read: “Nothing in his records indicating that he was a war criminal or an ardent Nazi.” As a result, Rudolf became a U.S. citizen. He later designed the Saturn 5 rocket used in the Apollo moon landing and received NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. He remained in the United States until 1984, when an investigation of his war record finally began and he fled to Germany.
Kurt Blome, a high-ranking Nazi scientist, told U.S. interrogators in 1945 that he had experimented with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried in the Nuremberg War Trials—but acquitted—on charges of extermination of sick prisoners and conducting experiments on humans. Only two months after the trial, he was interviewed at Camp David, Md., about his scientific expertise. His file showed no record of his Nuremberg trial. Blome was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical and biological warfare.
Hermann Becker-Freyseng was convicted at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conducting experiments on Dachau concentration camp inmates, including starving them and force-feeding them chemically altered seawater. Before the trial, however, he was paid by the Army Air Force to write reports about his inhumane experiments.
Georg Rikhey worked for the JIOA at Wright Field from 1946 until his arrest a year later for Nazi war crimes. During the war, Rikhey headed the slave labor factory Mittelwerk at the Dora concentration camps. Among other atrocities, there are reports that Rikhey had numerous slave laborers hung from a crane to die slowly in public view. During his time in the United States, Rikhey’s job was to translate 42 boxes of Mittelwerk documents shipped from Normandy—the very documents a U.S. Army war crimes unit sought to use as evidence of Rikhey’s own crimes.
Defenders of Project Paperclip cite achievements such as the moon rockets and jet planes as positive products of postwar research in our country. But what Paperclip’s defenders fail to mention is the shockingly inhumane psychochemical experimentation conducted on over 7,000 U.S. soldiers under the project.
Edgewood Arsenal, located near Baltimore, Md., is the most secret military base in the country. Paperclip scientists worked there between 1947 and 1966 conducting experiments on American citizens. Initially, their main efforts were to test the poison gases that had been invented by the Nazis during the war. Soon, the testing turned to LSD and other mind-control agents. Nazi science that was reminiscent of concentration camp experimentation was used as the basis for research in the United States on Americans.
MKULTRA, for example, is the name of the mind control experiments conducted on U.S. soldiers under Project Paperclip. Reviewing the experiments in the late 1950s, one CIA auditor wrote of them: “Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to enemy forces but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general. The knowledge that the agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions.”
Master Sergeant James Stanley, for one, remembers being locked in an isolated room with barred windows, padded walls and furniture bolted to the floor. A doctor instructed him to drink a glass of clear liquid containing LSD, telling him it was water. An hour later, Stanley’s head filled with terrifying visions and he became violently ill.
In 1992, the highly respected physician Dr. D.C. Hammond gave a lecture at the Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality. In his discussion of horrifying brainwashing methods being used in the same way all over the country, he notes its beginning:
Here’s where it appears to have come from. At the end of World War II, before it even ended, Allen Dulles and people from our Intelligence Community were already in Switzerland making contact to get out Nazi scientists. As World War II ends, they not only get out rocket scientists, but they also get out some Nazi doctors who have been doing mind-control research in the camps. They brought them to the United States.
The recruitment of the men responsible for atrocities committed under Hitler to fight the Cold War resulted in serious breaches of U.S. security, as well as extremely inhumane treatment of American soldiers, similar to that of concentration camp prisoners. On the security level, as Linda Hunt writes in Secret Agenda:
In direct defiance of President Truman’s policy, the Paperclip masterminds brazenly had the German scientists’ records changed to expunge evidence of war crimes and ardent Nazism and secure permanent immigration status for them in the U.S. Ostensibly that was done in the interest of national security. Once here, however, the scientists were given access to classified information that revealed the inner-most workings of our defense system. As a result, it was not long before the very people brought here to ensure our security had themselves become a security risk. Eventually some of the scientists took advantage of security lapses and left the country with classified material. German specialist Heinz Gartmann, for example, left Wright Field air base with turbojet rocket engine blueprints in his hand luggage. The full extent of the damage from incidents like that is still unknown.
Even worse, on a moral level, Nazis went unpunished and federal law was violated. Worst of all, as Linda Hunt has documented, Nazi attitudes toward research on human subjects were imported and adopted by various U.S. officials. “The Machiavellian attitude behind these operations was born when a World War II ally became a new enemy and the world axis shifted…[but] no matter how necessary intelligence activities may be, they cannot be allowed to operate unchecked, in secrecy and darkness, shielded from the democratic process of accountability. Otherwise, in the end we become our own worst enemy.”
Opens today December 29, 2010 | Runtime: 1 hr. 54 min. R - Strong graphic sexual content, language and a beating
BLUE VALENTINE is a story of love found and love lost told in past and present moments in time. Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean and Cindy use one night to try and save their failing marriage. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in this honest portrait of a relationship on the rocks.
While Cindy has blossomed into a woman with opportunities and options, David is still the same person he was when they met, and is unable to accept either Cindy’s growth or his lack of it. Innovatively structured, the narrative unfolds in two distinct time frames, juxtaposing scenes of first love and youthful sexuality, with those of disenchantment and discord.
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, John Doman, Faith Wladyka Director: Derek Cianfrance Genres: Marriage DramaDrama
Another Year
Opened December 29, 2010 | Runtime: 2 hr. 9 min. R – Language
An aging receptionist (Lesley Manville) desperately tries to ease the pain of her loneliness by flirting with her employer’s much-younger son.
Cast: David Bradley, Jim Broadbent, Karina Fernandez, Oliver Maltman, Lesley Manville Director: Mike Leigh Genres: Drama
UPCOMING RELEASES (Dates Subject to Change) January 07: Season of the Witch, Country Strong January 14: Green Hornet (3-D), The Dilemma, Rabbit Hole January 21: No Strings Attached, The way Back January 28: The Mechanic, The Rite February 04: The Roommate, Sanctum (3D) February 11: The Eagle, Gnomeo & Juliet (3D), Just Go with It, Justin Bieber Never Say Never February 18: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, I Am Number Four, Unknown February 25: Drive Angry (3D), Hall Pass, Shelter
Bon Appétit: Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts and Crisp Pancetta / Bacon
Ingredients;
1lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed
5oz diced pancetta or bacon
7oz cooked chestnuts, broken into large pieces
1 tbsp sugar
7 fl oz vegetable stock
Directions:
Boil the sprouts for three minutes until starting to soften slightly, then drain.
Fry the pancetta/bacon until crisp, then remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the chestnuts and sugar, tossing in the pan, then add the stock and reduce by half.
Add the sprouts and pancetta/bacon back to the pan and warm through to serve.
Issued by The National Weather Service
Charleston, WV
6:36 AM EST, Thursday, December 30, 2010
... FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON EST TODAY…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CHARLESTON HAS ISSUED A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY… WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON EST TODAY.
* TIMING: LIGHT FREEZING RAIN OVERSPREADING THE AREA FIRST THING THIS MORNING WILL CHANGE TO PLAIN RAIN AROUND 11 AM TO NOON… AS TEMPERATURES SLOWLY CLIMB ABOVE FREEZING.
* ICE ACCUMULATIONS: LESS THAN A TENTH OF AN INCH.
* IMPACTS: A LIGHT ACCUMULATION OF ICE MAY CAUSE TRAVEL PROBLEMS THIS MORNING… ESPECIALLY ON UNTREATED ROADWAYS AND WALKWAYS. PROBLEMS ARE MOST LIKELY WHEN AND WHERE THE TEMPERATURE IS 30 DEGREES OR LOWER.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF FREEZING RAIN OR FREEZING DRIZZLE WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS. SLOW DOWN AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.
We are told that she was a prophetess, old, a widow, and served God day and night in the Temple.
We are told elsewhere that Anna was given charge of Mary when Mary was dedicated, at age 11, to the Temple.
Anna the prophetess recognised who the infant Jesus was.
Anna praised God and ‘spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem’.
It is interesting that Anna is named as a prophetess.
Interesting that a woman spoke in the Temple.
Interesting that, with Simeon, she recognised the baby for who he was.
And she, a woman, proclaimed it.
In the Temple.
Not many women are named in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures.
Anna is one of the few.
Time.
Place.
Proclamation.
Interesting.
1 John 2:12-17. Let heaven and earth exult in joy! —Ps 95(96):7-10. Luke 2:36-40.
This scandal is an example of what happens when checks and balances are removed after a school board is stripped of authority. When elite people at the top have absolute control they always ensure that their interests are served first and if they can get by with it there is never any trickle down money left. Our school system is comprised of dedicated employees including custodians, maintenance people, school bus drivers, cooks, secretaries, aids, teachers, and others. All of them working together make the school system function. Elitists don’t understand it, but even a few hundred dollars more a year would have meant lots to the left out employees. Worst of all the scandal sends a distinct message that merit has nothing to do with monetary rewards. If the principal at Normantown with its highest achievement rating in the County had been singled out for a pay increase citizens would have been glad for her, but when the GCHS principal gets an equal sum with all the turmoil over there citizens exhibit stark disbelief. We can’t blame all the scandal on Blankenship because his decision had to be approved and maybe ordered from Dr. Phares’ office. What do you say Dr. Phares?
This issue of raises simply indicates the “dictator mindset” of Ronald Blankenship that has permeated since his first day on the job?
It is also a move to “own employees”?
o Mr. Phares was blindsided? You think? Or was it just show?
If that truly was the case, it would indicate clearly that feedback from Blankenship, Mattern, and Heinline has been:
(1) Lacking (2) Incomplete (3) With held (4) Dishonest OR all of these.
If Mr. Phares and Mr. Linger have been taken across by these employees of theirs, then it is past time to clean house of the incompetent and inept employees.
We now >know< that Mr. Phares >knows< there is something emitting a foul odor in this whole Gilmer County saga.
Mr. Phares we appreciate your presence here in Gilmer. Thank you. Now maybe you are getting a better picture of
the inadequacies of your underlings. We are waiting for you to do something now.
It has never made a bit of sense to pay “administrators” top salaries when teachers get much, much less and are the ones responsible for the education of the children. In a world run by common sense, schools should be run by the teachers who teach the children, not “administrators”. Parents and teachers together would do a much more effective job of making sure children were receiving the best possible education for each individual child.
This “one size fits all” nonsense has gone far beyond ridiculous. Paying administrators and directors to sit in offices and run the schools is tantamount to putting a tractor trailer on the highway and sitting in a dark room with a joy stick to run it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Dr. Unphares travels from Oz to speak to the stupid little people.
He obviously had no clue what is going on in this county. Praise for Blankenstein? What has improved under the fuhrer? Did Blankenstein rudely ignore everyone and pretend to be doing something important on his cell phone as he normally does? Does anyone have any ideas what he is doing on that phone? Simmons must have been about ready to burst with pride. He brought a biggy into the county. If the county could buy Bill for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth, our money problems would be solved.
I’m going to print this story out and date it. I just can’t figure out whether to file it under “lies” or “humor”.
Y’all will have to excuse me now. I’m headed for the vomitorium.
Dr. Phares permitted himself to be blind sided by assuming that all he had heard from his State operatives told the full story. After delivering his carefully drafted talking points everything went down hill from there and Ted Matterin was there to mouth what he thought Dr. Phares should say next. Dr. Phares was astute enough to realize what had happened to the County and he used his good judgement to do what was right. What we need to do now is to keep a close watch to ensure that there is no backtracking by the State. Let’s not forget that credit for getting Dr. Phares to attend the meeting goes to Bill Simmons.
West Virginia is famous again. Maybe Mr. Phares should also visit the school and board in Logan. The student who wore the NRA t-shirt to school, now threatened with a year in jail. It put West Virginia on national satellite radio news.
Quit blaming poor Mr Blankenship. He is reportedly only being paid 127k per year for his 3 day week.
He great at performing the “The Charleston” dance for us.
Turn up the speed. Turn up the volume. Watch and enjoy.
Folks. Go read the original OEPA audit when the school was taken over without any warning or any period of time to remedy issues that were found. You will find that one of the ‘points’ it made was to only ‘move/reassign’ any employee who was not preforming as required. Well, Blankenship has done that deed. The person who was to be ‘protected’ and kept on the job is still there. The complaints continue around the high school. Elite power brokers wanted to keep someone employed. That has been successful to date. So the complaints will roll on. We all know locally what its all about and the Charleston gang has been a slow education. The CUBES and what they were/are about has slowly come to the surface in Charleston too. They have been slow to catch on but they are coming.
As to the school situation. R.F.Ronson, you are wondering why the purchase agreement for the Crooked Run Property has not been disclosed? Well, well, well. Do you expect that to happen since Blankenship has kept the Gilmer citizens and school board in the dark now…...which will be 2 years comes July 1 ? If you keep all information secret, you have to make fewer lies and answer fewer questions? That is the Gilmer County standard operating procedure, you know. Well, it was, until Gilmer Free Press came along and gave the citizens a voice.
Wasn’t Jim Phares hired as a “temporary” state superintendent? Marple was sent home last November right after the election. Has that job been advertised yet?
Remember, the job requirements have now been “dumbed down” for the position. Ol’ boy system at work?
Dr. Phares, will you explain why information for the purchase agreement for the Crooked Run school is not disclosed to the public? Tax money will be used to purchase the land and it is bad government when details are withheld. Citizens understand that Ron Blankenship committed to pay an exorbitant price per acre for the land that far exceeds land value prices in the area and 75 acres will be purchased when that much land is not needed. When asked about financial details about the land purchase Mr. Blankenship has said that they will be disclosed at the proper time. Why the carefully guarded secrecy? Is the State fearful of the truth coming out?
This the funniest thing that I read in some time. To even think about impeaching president Bush after 5 years of Obamaama. I do not think that Obamaama should be impeached either, he should be tried for treason.
We all know that Obaama will be reading this too.
The great fact manipulators can spin absolutely anything to support their chosen position. That doesn’t mean it’s correct. For instance, 100% of students taking a test becomes a 100% attendance rate.
So I am reading that State Board of Education newly hired replacement is coming to Gilmer County. Thats great. Are we going to hear that Normantown is being closed? Thats been speculated. Or will he tell us in five or ten years Gilmer will get control back. Guess we only have until Monday evening to wait.
With luck, the children’s champion, Mrs Starkey, will ask relevant questions. Don’t hear much out of the other four. Cat got their tongue? The rest must have been either bought off or told to be quiet. Both?
One thing is for sure. The State Board of Education cannot brag about what a great job they are doing with the intervention counties. There are NO statistics that would support a statement to that effect.
From appearances the 911 Center is dead. Or is it? Its been reported that the Commissioners have been having secret meetings with the GSC Power Brokers. GSC wants that 911 Center. Capture that revenue stream. Takes a lot of green to feed the pig you know. When the Commissioners get what they think is a good deal personally, the College will get the 911 Center….and the Commissioners will have no extra work or responsibility. Its always whats best for them, not whats best for Gilmer County.
It’s about things they have no clue about and the lack of people skills. This underscores the county commission’s lack of attention to detail and inability to get things done when things get technical.
This isn’t the only situation coming to a head. I predict a major falling out that’s going to cost the county commission. I hope they have several hundred thousand dollars set aside.
What was the real reason the Administrative Assistant for OEM quit? It had to be more than just cutting hours. I have heard so many negative things about the Director and how she does things. When will the County Commission do something about her? She seems to think she is a one-woman show and she runs everything. Oh, I forgot, she is friends with one commissioner and he gets her anything she wants. It makes you wonder what will happen when another emergency happens and she can’t be found.
This is another example of the county commission not taking care of their responsibilities. The OES is obviously an ongoing “That’s how we do it in Gilmer County” semi-disaster. The OES positions are critical to this county when we face our most difficult times. Yet the county commission seems to be content with kicking another can down he road. Instead they need to kick something else down the road.
Will the commission wake up and take care of business? Maybe when they get bit in the posterior. What they don’t know is that is coming fast. You can only push people so long.
3 to 5 minutes?...you kidding me?
I called the city police one morning regarding a window of my vehicle being shot out and the response I got was “the Chief is in the shower right now, he can be there in about 45 minutes.“
They are not even on duty 24/7 so how could they respond that fast???
I pray Ms. Starkey attempts to ask her usual questions and then see if Blankenship ignores or turns his back on her in front of his boss.
Please call him out on this Phyllis, better yet ask Phares why Blankenship acts this way!
I will not call these comments from the power company outright lies.
I will say they created this problem all by them self.
They tried to cut meter reading expenses, and now that it did not work out,
they are doing the two-step dance trying to get around it all. This problem
started when Allegheny Power sold out. Was then continued forward.
They did admit to having meter reader “positions” not filled.
This is a clear statement as to what they were up too. We all know there
is NO shortage of people looking for jobs.
I hope the public service commission are able to see through the
“smoke” that Mon Power is making.
Does America sponsor wars? The Syrian Rebels are sworn supporters of Al-Quadia.
We are helping them with weapons, ammunition and now military support.
Al-Quadia has clearly stated they are at war with America? Skip B., you are correct.
Why not just put up a “War-Free Zone” sign like they do with “Drug-Free” signs at schools? A Constitutional amendment will have about as much impact. Does ANYBODY think that because we withdraw from wars that they will stop?
Does this court reversal sort of makes me wonder if the PA and Judge BOTH were out of bounds? As well as the welfare office?
Do they receive any punishment other than we now know about what is going on?
Think all of Gilmer County would wish the solution of repairing our dysfunctional state run school system would be as simple as the County Commission issues. Maybe Mr Jones and some other could fix both the school problems and the Commission problems. Most who are up to date, would say it is all egos causing both problems.
Now we know WHO YOU ARE Roy Jones! Yeah, we would like to have our COUNTY BACK, INSTEAD of the give back to the county blah blah blah. Sometimes you can see a wolf in sheeps clothing if you look at their feet, and your feet need a good washin…
The OEM Director needs to be accountable for work that is not being done in the county. She keeps information to herself and never shares with her staff. The CC just lets her do what she pleases because they are not NIMS trained and they believe everything she says. When will she be accountable for how she runs Emergency Management? The firemen in Gilmer County do not want to work with her after she made an A** of herself during the June 2012 storm. Does that not show that most of the volunteers in the county have not confidence in her ability to do her job?
I am so excited about this construction and the facilities that are coming. I appreciate those who have the resources to give back to Gilmer County. Thank you.
Looks like the Director and the CC were looking for a clean sweep of the office. Remember how they tried to terminate the Asst. Director. Maybe the CC should call and ask the previous Admin Assistant to reapply.
There is a lot more to this story than is in print here. The individual who was previously employed in this position, according to reliable sources, had their work hours reduced from 15 weekly to only 6 hours. So…....how come now the county is advertising for a 10 to 15 hour position?
