While many of us think factory poultry farms are Accomack’s problem, that may not longer be the case, as this citizen explains in this comment sent to the Mirror:
I don’t think there is much that smells worse than chicken manure fertilizer. The new trend among the local farmers is using chicken poop ( presumably coming from the factory chicken operations up in Accomack County) to spread on their farm fields. The odor is a combination of dog poop and rotten fish. As I like to keep my windows open (for “fresh” air) my entire house reeked yesterday. I had to burn candles. To top it off, our large, very hairy dog comes in the morning having trudged all through said fields and rolled enthusiastically, so she is now coated with the horrendous ( toxic, too, no doubt!) stuff. We NEVER had these issues with regular fertilizers or fungicides. I can only guess that the chicken poop is cheaper.
I am quite sure that there is a road called Rt 13 that will take you away from ‘The Shore’ if you travel North or South. I am also quite sure that no one will force you to return.
Reply
I think this record has a skip in it.Maybe it’s time for someone else to take that road out of here.
I’m Long gone, like a turkey through the corn
Long gone, like turkey through the corn
Long gone, with my long pyjamas on…
An on-line publication called QUARTZ had an interesting article recently relating to this subject of public health protection entitled “Scott Pruitt requests funds for a 24/7 fleet of bodyguards, as the EPA is poised to cut health and safety programs” by Zoë Schlanger on 12 April 2017, wherein was stated as follows:
The administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, historically, has had some measure of government-funded personal security detail.
But Scott Pruitt, the new EPA chief, wishes to be guarded 24/7.
While the draft budget for the EPA obtained by the Washington Post this month shows massive cuts to environment, health, and climate change programs—including the elimination of a program to prevent childhood exposure to lead paint—it also includes a request to hire 10 additional security guards to create an around-the-clock personal security detail for Pruitt, the New York Times reports.
What security menace is Pruitt guarding against?
According to Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team but is no longer employed by the administration, Pruitt is at risk from his own employees—and “the left.”
“I think it’s prudent given the continuing activities by the left to foment hatred, and the reported hostility within the agency from some unprofessional activists,” Ebell told E&E News.
end quotes
The impression one gets from reading that, is that you people down here really should do what we have to do up here to the north of you, and that is to kiss the concepts of public health protection and environmental protection, which any intelligent and rational person realizes go hand in hand, good bye, because from the perspective of the federal government, those concepts are going right out the window.
When our corporations and businesses in this country have to compete with other nations where human life is held cheap, and the environment something that is expendable, why, then, it is only logical that we too as a nation and a people have to hold human life and the environment cheap in this country in order to be able to compete against those nations, so EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is leading the charge on that score in this race to the bottom.
Welcome to tomarrow, people, as it happens today!
And wait til August, when it gets humid and that stuff gets really ripe.
That will make these seem like the good old days by comparison.
Some dislike seeing Royal Farms being built, but apparently do not mind the smell of chicken houses. I’ll take the gas stations and restaurants any time.
Despite the oddly extraneous, not to mention passive aggressive, nature of most of the comments above, I’d be willing to bet that those who seem to be defending the use of raw chicken poop ( I have heard rumors of actual chicken parts being in this odious mix as well) as farm fertilizer are the same ones who fancy themselves Defenders of the Bay…? All this mess washes into the bay via creeks and ditches, obviously. One can love living here on Shore and still find grievance with the use of what is essentially sewage on land surrounding one’s home. Suggestions to move away as a solution, which I’m sure were thought to be clever, are trite and non-productive. I think the original remarks are pertinent; too bad there doesn’t seem to be much constructive, salient thought out there about this.
I agree, its raw sewage, and not nice smelling like for example horse manure. The chickens aren’t paying the bills around here, the tourists are, wait until all this nitrogen etc causes toxic algae blooms and the tourists stop coming…
Not meant to be ‘Clever’ or ‘Trite’….I do not say things I do not mean. The fascination with chickens and now their manure never ceases to amaze me. A county full of people who eat chicken 4 or 5 times a week and are unwilling to support the industry and the waste produced, to provide the main source of protein consumed by the vast majority of it’s citizens and illegal aliens. How is that for a run-on sentence for you? I constructed it that way on purpose.
Post your real name next time…not a make-believe-moniker.
Stuart Bell, as an older American who just ate some chicken last night, as a matter of fact, in at least partial fulfillment of what I construe to be a duty placed on me as a citizen of these United States to support the American chicken industry to provide, as you say, the main source of protein consumed by the vast majority of America’s citizens and illegal aliens. which support I gave by eating some chicken, to make space for somebody to grow some more, in fulfillment of their American dream of getting filthy rich by supplying the needs of the chicken-eating public like me and you, and not to be overly critical here, for this is not meant maliciously at all, your run-on sentence is alright as far as it goes, but dude, it lacks a climax!
You’re just getting going, building up a good head of steam like Arlo Guthrie in “Alice’s Resturant,” where he is talking about the Group “W” bench, and you got everybody sitting on the edge of their seat, waiting, like with the Group “W” bench to see where it is you are going to go, and then, you, unlike Arlo, just let it fall flat on its face, petering off into whimsy, as it seems to do in its present state of uncompletion!
You gave us no conclusion, Stuart Bell, is what I am saying here.
What was it you meant to tell us, is the question you have left on everybody’s mind, let me tell you.
What did you mean to say?
They are un-American?
They are not patriotic?
Help us out here, Stuart Bell, bring your run-on sentence to its proper conclusion, and I think it will then end up a masterpiece of the art, and in future years, we can all bask in the memories of seeing your talent in the art of the properly-constructed run-on sentence exposed here in the pages of the CCM for the very first time.
I have no interest in helping you with your reading comprehension, nor providing you with a climax.
Stuart Bell, calm down here, dude, take a couple of good, slow, deep breaths, which will stop you from hyperventilating for a moment.
If you will go back and very slowly and carefully re-read my post on the construction of your wonderful run-on sentence, as incomplete as it is right now, lacking a conclusion, as it does, you will notice that it is not I who needs your help with my reading comprehension, as my reading comprehension is already, through many, many years of honing the skill, going back at least to the fifth grade, at a quite high level, thank you very much for being concerned.
It is the petering out of your run-on sentence into pure fancy and whimsy that caught my attention, and being of a helpful nature, I simply thought to point that out to you, in case you hadn’t realized that.
Right now, your run-on sentence is like a half-baked cake, if you know what I am saying, and without drawing it to a logical conclusion, like it is un-American and bad citizenship, to boot, to live in a county full of people who eat chicken 4 or 5 times a week and yet be unwilling to support the industry and the waste produced, to provide the main source of protein consumed by the vast majority of it’s citizens and illegal aliens.
Now, how is that for a run-on sentence for you?
It does sound much better, doesn’t it, by making it more clear what meaning you intended to convey?
I am as cool as the center of a cucumber. If you would like to discuss ‘me’ any further please leave a phone number and I will call you immediately.
No, Stuart Bell, you are actually even cooler than that, and that is saying something, because in this world today, not many are.
And you do say what you mean, in a day and age when many or most don’t, starting right at the top with our federal politicians, and working on down from there, right to the local level, and the industrial chicken houses in Accomack County, Virginia.
You know what I am saying here, Stuart Bell, that old tired line about “trust us, people, we have your best interests at heart, and we won’t let any environmental harm come your way,” when everybody who is not naïve knows that is pure BULL****.
We’re all capitalists in this country, afterall, and everybody knows that squishy, touchy-feely stuff like public health protection and environmental protection are SOCIALISTIC, and we don’t have socialism in this country, which is why we have a healthcare industry which is booming, if any of you people are looking for a place to park some money into some good growth stocks, so all these people who aren’t stepping up to the plate here to do their civic duty of cheering the expansion of the chicken industry on Cape Charles for the good of the American economy and GDP had better just shut their mouths and get with the program, ASAP!
See, Stuart Bell, as I said, I do get it.
Now, if we can only get the rest of the world to sing that song in three-part harmony, with real and not feigned gusto, I think we really will have accomplished something real important in this lifetime, and how many people do you know outside of us who can make that claim, Stuart Bell?
Not many is my thought.
If you would like to discuss ‘me’ please leave a phone number so I can call you. I can assure you this is not the place for the conversation I feel is needed.
Ah, Stuart Bell, when the subject under discussion in this thread is the sweet smell of chicken poop making its way into the environment of Cape Charles, Virginia as a permanent part of that environment, to displace any other “might have beens,” why would I want to make it about you, instead?
Let me assure you, Stuart Bell, it is not about you, personally, but let me also assure you that I did get the message you were trying to convey to all these other people in here, that the sweet stink of chicken poop is something they had better get used to, because it is now here and isn’t going away, and I merely thought that if you doctored up your run-on sentence a little better, that message would come through loud and clear.
If you want the luxury of eating chicken here in America, people, then you had better get used to the smell of chicken ****, because without the one, you can’t have the other!
See, Stuart Bell, I do get it, and I personally have to applaud your Herculean efforts to get that point across to these people – it’s a new world out there, now, and what might have been yesterday is now dead and gone!
Now, if we can only get all these others to get it, as well, what a wonderful, world this could be!
As a rhetorical question, why would these industrial chicken-producing factories be sited where they are, near the ocean, given that the chicken, like his cousin, the goose, is a prodigious crap producer, a proposition easily verified by GOOGLING the inquiry “how much manure does a chicken produce,” and getting back as an answer, “One hen will produce 130 pounds of manure in 1 year, or 1000 hens will produce 65 tons,” from the University of Hawaii.
Since the chicken is a fairly constant crap producer, 24/7/365, it follows that every day, every chicken is producing a bunch of crap that, let’s be realistic here, is going out into the environment, eventually, where “environment” is defined as “the surroundings or conditions in which a person lives or operates,” as opposed to some pristine, undeveloped piece of land in the middle of nowhere, which is exactly as it should be in these cases impacting on the public’s health and right to unpolluted drinking water, one of the most basic of rights that there can be, as can be seen in a document http://www.publichealthlaw.net/Resources/ResourcesPDFs/Virginia.pdf entitled “Virginia Public Health Law – Review and Recommendations” by James G. Hodge, Jr., J.D., LL.M., Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and Lawrence O. Gostin, J.D., LL.D. (Hon.), Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Co-director, the Georgetown/Johns Hopkins Program on Law & Public Health, wherein is clearly stated as follows: “The mission of public health is fulfilling society’s interest in assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy,” and “The preservation of the public health is among the most important goals of government.”
So, the question then, is how do you realistically balance those admittedly nebulous goals on the one hand of “assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy,” when nobody in this country is really healthy to begin with, which is why we have a health care industry to take care of them, so why should the chicken industry then have to be penalized with too high a standard imposed on them to protect people who are already sick, anyway, and “the preservation of the public health” being among the most important goals of government, with American capitalism on the other, where American capitalism is based, as it always has been, on making a profit at the expense of the environment and public health; and in truth, that question has already been answered by the presence of the industrial chicken factories on Cape Charles.
If you GOOGLE the phrase “poultry manure production per bird,” you will see research paper after research paper, or technical papers from universities, on the question of what the hell do you do with all that chicken **** once you have all them chickens in one place, so there is no way whoever approved these industrial operations didn’t know what they were approving in terms of getting rid of all that chicken ****, which boils down to land disposal, somewhere, right in somebody’s face, or olfactory glands, anyway, as well as their water supply, which will be sacrificed in the name of progress, for there to be progress, somebody has to be hurt; or incineration, or finally, the most simple and elegant solution of all, which is the long pipe out into the ocean somewhere, and let Mother Nature deal with it, which would be my bet as to the final solution after trucking and incineration are proven by studies on the problem to be too expensive, leaving ocean dumping as the only viable option, which is why they are located where they are, with the ocean fairly handy as it is, especially with the power of eminent domain and a pipeline-friendly administration in Washington, D.C., that is all about jobs, regardless of the cost to the future.
People may not like to hear about it, but reality eventually has to set in and that future is now, people, just as it always has been, except now, it is no longer theoretical, the smell in the air is real.
And don’t expect the EPA to come riding to the rescue anytime soon, for as that passive aggressive article in that on-line publication called QUARTZ entitled “Scott Pruitt requests funds for a 24/7 fleet of bodyguards, as the EPA is poised to cut health and safety programs” by Zoë Schlanger on 12 April 2017, makes incandescently clear, under Scott Pruitt, who is surrounding himself with a private army of armed thugs and goons to protect him from people like you down here concerned about the health of your environment, because it is yours, they are not coming, so don’t bother to call!
American, for the most part, would not be able to eat their steak, chops (veal, pork, or lamb), and chicken dishes if they toured a slaughter house. They have become so far removed from the process that their food’s waste by-products have become offensive. It is a sad state of affairs that America finds itself in these days. How foolish they seem to the other half who get it.
Now, people, when it comes to “getting IT,” I don’t think you could find anyone in the United States of America more schooled in that subject of “getting IT” than I am, and in my case, with that schooling coming directly to me from none other than now-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2005 when she was a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit in New York City, which federal circuit covers all of New York state, where I reside; so without bragging, I would say that I could be considered an expert, or perhaps matter is a better term, of the concept of what “IT” really is in real life, for without that intimate knowledge of what “IT” really is, and that is key, you can’t really “get IT,” but having been schooled as I have been in the subject, and that was extensively, that makes me the ideal person in all of America to be helping Stuart Bell out with his run-on sentence in here, as he too tries to spread the message to these people on Cape Charles of what “IT” now is for them, now that the chicken **** has arrived.
Fait Accompli is what I hear Stuart Bell saying.
This is America, land of the free and home of the brave where we celebrate truth, justice and the American Way, and by God, people, in the American Way, we have civil rights, and veterans like us fought for Constitutional Due Process of Law, so that as the legal authorities will now see it, should they ever deign to look, an unlikely prospect for the next four years, anyway, if not for eternity, what they will say is that all of you people who don’t like having the gaseous emissions of chicken **** crawling up inside your nostrils and entering your olfactory glands so as to register the smell of chicken **** in your nostrils to your brain, you had a chance when this was in the review stage to say something about it, and since you didn’t, they will tell you that under the law, you acquiesced when you could have said something, so you have by your silence signed away your right to breathing clean air.
You live in an industrial zone, now, people, and in an industrial zone, people have no real rights.
Industrial zones are about profits.
Stuart Bell pretty much said that in his run-on sentence above here, but it seemed to me that in mid-stream he fell victim to a malaise arising from an overpowering sense of futility and never properly finished it, thinking it was just going to be, as it so often is, and seems to be here, a case of people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest, which is as true right now today, as it has always been.
So that is why I stepped in here to help Stuart Bell get his important message across to all of you people so you too won’t engage in acts of futility like complaining about the smell of chicken **** pervading your kitchen when you are trying to bake bread or something like that.
Like many who read the Cape Charles Mirror from afar, the Cape Charles Mirror being a global publication thanks to the internet, afterall, I consider Cape Charles’ own Stuart Bell to be a stalwart advocate of a form of nativist rationality based on seeing things as they are, and not as they could have been, “but for,” which in this case the “but for” in question being the approval and siting of all those industrial strength chicken-**** producing factories on Cape Charles, such are chicken houses, especially when on the industrial scale as contemplated for Cape Charles, which means, people, to boil the important message of Stuart Bell down to its simplest elements, condensing and refining it constantly along the way in the process, tomarrow is definitely not going to be the yesterday the tourists will remember from the last time they were here, when they get out of their cars to take a bracing breath of what they thought would be clean ocean air, only to realize it is something else, completely, but face it, folks, tourists are only a couple of months of the year, while chickens produce profits all year long, without demanding any services to boot.
So there you have “IT,” people.
Do you see “IT” more clearly now?
The future is now, people.
Whatever else it might have been, it ain’t no more, and now, it is something else, entirely, as this children’s ditty from up this way makes pretty clear:
With apologies to Jean Ritchie
I come from the mountains, Kentucky’s my home
Where the wild deer and black bear so lately did roam
By the cool rushing waterfall the wildflowers dream
And through every green valley, there runs a clear stream
Now there’s scenes of destruction on every hand thanks to Donald Trump’s deregulation plan
And only black waters run down through my land
Sad scenes of destruction on every hand
Thanks to Donald Trump’s deregulation plan
Black waters, black waters, run down through my land
Well, the quail, she’s a pretty bird and she sings a sweet tongue
In the roots of tall timber she nests with her young
Then the hillside explodes with the dynamites roar
And the voice of the small bird is heard there no more
And the mountain comes a sliding so awful and grand
And the flooding black waters rise over my land
Thanks to Donald Trump and his deregulation plan
In the coming of springtime we planted our corn
In the ending of springtime we buried our son
In the summer come a nice man saying everything’s fine
My employer just requires a way to his mine
Then they tore down my mountain and covered my corn
Now the grave on the hillside ‘s a mile deeper down
And the man stands a talking with his hat in his hand
While the poison black waters rise over my land
Thanks to Donald Trump and his deregulation plan
Well I ain’t got no money, not much of a home
I own my own land, but my land’s not my own
But, if I had ten million, somewheres thereabout
Well, I’d buy Perry county and throw them all out
And just sit down on the banks with my bait and my can
And watch the clear waters run down through my land
Well, wouldn’t that be just like the old promised land?
Black waters, black waters no more in my land
Black waters, black waters no more in my land
But not while Trump’s around with his deregulation plan
end quote
Down here, you can make it about:
The sweet smell of chicken poop’s all over the land
Thanks to Donald Trump and his deregulation plan
The anatomy of a perfect cover-up, people, this is how easy public health protection is swept away and kept away from a people who don’t know or don’t care about the law and how it is supposed to safeguard them.
Take heed – our polluted present may be your contaminated future, and once polluted or contaminated, groundwater can stay that way for longer then you are able to go without water:
22 April 2017
New York State Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin
LOB 533
Albany, NY 12248
RE: Hoosick Falls; who did know what, and when did they know it?
Dear Mr. Assemblyman McLaughlin:
With respect to the rhetorical question of who knew what and when in connection with the Hoosick Falls PFOA debacle which was raised by yourself in your recent political flier sent out at taxpayer expense to the residents of Rensselaer County wherein you tout all that you say you have done for the people of Rensselaer County in terms of that fiasco, including allegedly questioning how the Department of Health handled the water crisis, which was poorly; and allegedly demanding an investigation into how the governor’s administration dealt with the situation, when the governor’s administration had no role to play in the matter, it having absolutely no expertise or qualifications when it comes to protecting public health in New York, as well as being a demand you as a legislative branch member had no Constitutional authority or jurisdiction to make in the first place, since it is the voters and not yourself who hold the Governor to account; and finally, allegedly holding state officials accountable for their handling of the water crisis at bi-partisan legislative hearings which seemed to hold no one in a position of responsibility accountable in any way, since they are all still there where they were before, unlike Flint, Michigan, where criminal charges have been filed, as they should have been here, the answer to your rhetorical question is that pretty much everybody in a circle from New York City to Montreal and Boston to Buffalo, or even Chicago and points west who was alive back in 1988 knew, and that would include then-New York State Governor Mario Cuomo, then-New York State Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod, the New York State Education Department Office of Professional Discipline, the New York State Attorney General, the Rensselaer County District Attorney, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, the New York State Environmental Conservation Commissioner, the New York Times, the Albany Times Union, the Troy Record, the Schenectady Gazette, New York State Senator Joseph Bruno, New York State Assemblyman Pat Casale, Rensselaer County Legislator Marilyn Douglas, Rensselaer County Legislator Tommy Cholakis, Rensselaer County Legislator Daniel Ashley, Judith Enck, and the people of the village of Hoosick Falls, and the town of Hoosick Falls, to name some of the more pertinent and relevant ones.
They all knew, Mr. Assemblyman, and rhetorically speaking, how could they not have known, when it was common news all along?
More specifically, how was it at all possible that the people of Hoosick Falls in 1988, the parents and grandparents of those children ingesting the PFOA, did not know they were being stripped of public health protection as well as being denied and deprived of the honest services of an associate public health engineer by Rensselaer County, when it was they themselves who clamored in a televised public hearing held in Hoosick Falls at the County Building by Rensselaer County legislators Marilyn Douglas, Daniel Ashley and Tommy Cholakis to have the Rensselaer County associate public health engineer kept out of the town of Hoosick and the village of Hoosick Falls?
In that very real sense, Mr. Assemblyman, it is those people themselves who share a great deal of the responsibility here, for it was they who set the wheels in motion by keeping the Public Health Law and sanitary code out of Hoosick Falls under a distinct threat of violence which was memorialized as a part of the public record in connection with this matter in an October 12, 1988 memorandum from then-Rensselaer County Public Health Director Kenneth Van Praag to then-Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono, RE: Director of Environmental Health Paul Plante, where Mr. Van Praag informed Mr. Buono thusly:
As you are aware, the Rensselaer County Department of Health has been endeavoring to do what it is required to do in terms of regulating and enforcing the wide range of state and county sanitary codes designed to protect the public’s health and safety.
It should be noted that the New York State Health Department has commended and upheld the judgments exercised by the Director while dealing with the difficult regulatory functions relating to this program.
The stress, however, on this department and upon its director, Paul Plante, has reached a point where I believe that the orderly administration of the division is seriously impacted given the highly charged atmosphere which exists today.
Of greater concern, however, is the effect of this atmosphere on Paul Plante personally.
I am concerned for Paul Plante’s health, both physically and emotionally, and I cannot help but feel that there has to be some effect on his everyday activities as they relate to his family and his personal life.
There are several situations which have contributed to this perception:
1. The recently concluded legislative hearings which appeared to be conducted in a highly charged atmosphere and carefully orchestrated so as not to allow input from the Director of Environmental Health.
2. Charges by Mrs. Douglas characterizing health department personnel in conducting their responsibilities reminiscent of that which took place in “Nazi”-like Germany.
3, The “HANGING IN EFFIGY” of Paul Plante, which appeared on the front pages of the Times Record, and which occurred outside the East Greenbush Town Hall at a time when the legislature held its hearing at that location.
It is my understanding that there were no comments from any of the elected officials decrying that type behavior.
4. Similar actions at the hearing in Hoosick Falls.
Again, absent any comment by the Legislature, one cannot help but feel that they condone that type of activity.
end quotes
And yes, Mr. Assemblyman, not only did they condone that overt tone of menace and threat, they actively encouraged it, especially in Hoosick Falls, where in front of several witnesses, I was told I would be lucky if I got out of Hoosick Falls alive, and if I was smart, I would never come back.
So there is some more responsibility apportioned where it should be, although none of those people ever were held to account, nor would they ever be.
And how could Governor Mario Cuomo and Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod not know on January 10, 1988 that there were some very serious problems in Rensselaer County, and by extension Hoosick Falls, with regard to public health protection, when the Albany, New York Times Union newspaper, the newspaper of record for New York’s capital of Albany, ran a story by Laurie Anderson entitled “Developers see a zealot in new county health officer” wherein was stated as follows:
Plante is the focus of a political controversy fueled by the Democratic majority in the county legislature, including chairman Joseph Manupella, who said he’s concerned many developers may not be getting a fair shake and may start looking outside the county.
Plante contended that, unlike some of his predecessors, he knows the regulations well and will not bend the state health laws.
He contended some developers are upset because they are no longer “free and loose” to do what they want in Rensselaer County.
Plante is involved in several fierce feuds with developers, the most public of which involves Anderson, who is attempting to rally the county legislature, Buono, and the state Health Department to make Plante more compliant.
end quotes
Now, Mr. Assemblyman, as a legislator, you are a wordsmith, so as you read that last sentence, which was right there in the Albany Times Union for all to see, starting with Dr. Axelrod, as I personally made sure his office had a copy, how many different meanings for the phrase “make Plante more complaint” come to mind?
How many different ways can that sentence be interpreted given that my job duties as Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer included as follows:
This is a professional position involving responsibility for the planning, direction and supervision of the environmental health program of the Rensselaer County Department of Health.
The work involves providing advice and guidance to local officials and the general public in regard to environmental health problems and the measures necessary for improvements and compliance with legal requirements.
An incumbent provides leadership in the promotion of public health through application of environmental practices.
In addition, an employee is responsible for the enforcement of the provisions of the Public Health Law and local and State Sanitary Codes in relation to environmental matters.
(emphasis added)
Isn’t the only interpretation possible that this developer was attempting to rally the state Health Department to make me turn my back and look the other way just as the state Health Department itself was doing?
In the light of official findings of Dr. Axelrod himself in March of 1989 that Rensselaer County did not follow its own code and policy guidance , and the administration of Rensselaer County public health programs had been conducted with inadequate written procedures and policies, and the rules and regulations regarding the practice of engineering appear to have been violated, resulting in a loss of public health protection for the people of Rensselaer County, and the State Department of Health, which has broad supervisory responsibility over local health units, did not provide appropriate oversight to identify the deficiencies which had occurred, so that, clearly in the words of Dr. Axelrod himself in 1989, based on an extensive and intensive investigation of the Rensselaer County Department of Health conducted by myself as a New York State licensed professional engineer, since 1978, eleven (11) years earlier, the New York State Department of Health “failed to identify the extent to which the County programs were deviating from its own standards,” can there be any doubt whatsoever that in January of 1988, this developer Anderson was attempting to rally the New York State Department of Health to make me turn my back on my duties in Rensselaer County, and Hoosick Falls, as well?
And that answer, Mr. Assemblyman, is no, there can be no doubt, just as there is no doubt today that after 1989, that equation never changed, and hence, as a direct result of years of depraved indifference and a callous disregard for human life coupled with intentional negligence and the intentional denial of honest services by the State of New York and County of Rensselaer going back in an unbroken chain to 1978, we have the Hoosick Falls PFOA debacle, just as we have groundwater problems in Poestenkill, in the vicinity of the Algonquin Middle School, near the site of the closed garbage transfer station where DEC was allowing the dumping of cleaning fluids and medical waste and dirty diapers and tons of garbage on bare ground over porous shale rock, and the Storonske Cooperage scandal in Schodack, where the Rensselaer County Department of Health and the DEC were turning their backs while a pregnant woman in that vicinity was drinking water laced with several chemical contaminants; and who knows what else, starting with the Rensselaer County Department of Health, the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation whose regulatory insufficiency and turning its back is directly responsible for the PCB’s it allowed GE to dump in the upper Hudson River with its blessing, lest it be perceived as being not business friendly.
As to harmful substances being introduced to the environment in Hoosick Falls coupled with the need to be “business-friendly,” to see that all in action, all we need do is turn to the New York Times article “A COPPER SPILL KILLS THOUSANDS OF FISH UPSTATE” by Josh Barbanel, Special to the New York Times, published July 27, 1983, where we find as follows:
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y., July 26— A copper compound of mysterious origin spilled into the Hoosic River here over the weekend and killed as many as 100,000 fish, environmental officials said today.
Along six miles of river bank, white suckers and minnows and brown and rainbow trout rotted in the sun as environmental officials searched for clues to identify the polluter.
”It killed everything, there is nothing living there,” said Richard Moses, a truck farmer who lives next to the river and first reported the mishap at dawn on Saturday.
”I could see the water was a blueish green color and I looked on the bank and there were fish dead or in the process of dying.”
The fish kill extended from the Shop Bridge in Hoosick Falls, an aging industrial village of 6,000 about 30 miles northeast of Albany, down a winding course to the Eagle Bridge six miles to the north.
As environmental officials took water samples at industrial sites along the river today, they discovered a second spill – one of greenish fluid – flowing into the river.
”There aren’t any fish left to kill,” said John McLean, an environmental conservation officer.
Environmental officials found a high concentration of copper in water samples taken shortly after the first dead fish were found.
Over the weekend the officials issued recommendations that people not bathe in the river, nor eat the dead fish.
However, they said copper posed no danger to drinking water and was quickly diluted in the fast-flowing river.
Donald Bogardus, the Mayor of Hoosick Falls, said: ”The river has been quite polluted for some years.”
The source of the copper spill remained unsolved.
Officials worked on the theory that it originated at an Oak Mitsui Inc. plant in Hoosick Falls.
The plant, a joint venture of Oak Industries and a Japanese company – Mitsui Mining and Smelting – manufactures coppercoated circuit boards for the electronic industry.
Late in the day, by using a red dye, officials determined that the second spill came from a village sewage-treatment plant that had malfunctioned and was disgorging raw sewage into the river.
The officials said it was possible that the copper compound had been dumped into the sewer system, rather than into the Mitsui treatment system.
Mr. McLean said the company was checking to see if it had a ”bad employee.”
Oak Industries is the largest employer in Hoosick Falls, with 600 employees at eight plants.
It was a major factor in a revival that has rejuvenated the village after decades of decline.
”If Oak goes out of Hoosick Falls, there will be nothing left,” said Ronald Burch, one of 140 employees at Oak Mitsui.
end quotes
That last sentence explains it all, of course, why all the back-turning by state and county officials was going on so long – if we enforce the regulations here, the industries will simply move somewhere else where there are no regulations.
And that is all the way back in 1983.
And all of this intentional negligence and depraved indifference and callous disregard for human health and intentional denial of honest services, which at that time had been going on since the 1970s has continued in an unbroken chain since then, which contention is backed up by literally over a thousand pages of unrefuted sworn testimony in the files of the New York State Department of Health, the New York State Attorney General, itself very adept at covering up negligence by the State of New York through the use of intimidation, coercion, fraud and deliberate false statements, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Rensselaer County Clerk.
So that should serve to give you a much better understanding of who really did know what and when they knew about it, and what they should have done with the knowledge if they were responsible public officials, as opposed to tractable and compliant public officials who know how to turn the blind eye to preserve their jobs and their pensions.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante, NYSPE
CC: New York State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione
Room 917, LOB
Albany, NY 12247
This thread sure got weird, fast. I guess I must be some sort of dumb hick, but I wasn’t too sure what all of the above verbose comments were about…. though I did manage to pick up on the blame laid at Donald Trump’s feet for our chicken poop problem! Now, THAT is funny stuff. And how did (national level) politics get into this?! Though, I know that there is always a segment of the population (let’s just call them Democrat supporters) that tend to use any and all issues to push a political agenda…oops! I bet THAT will get ya’ll talking! I have to chuckle and shake my head.
Don’t shake it so much that it comes off its peg, Jane, that would be exceptionally debilitating for you to have to deal with in your obvious state of frenzy here at even a hint that Donald Trump’s environmental deregulation plan is going to adversely impact human health, which any thinking child knows will be the case, which is why they sing that ditty above here up this way where I am to mourn the loss to come that their generation will be forced to live with, and that can happen you know, your head flying off its peg to lurch crazily around from shoulder to shoulder, mimicking perfectly by its own frenzied motions the frenzy you are feeling right now, from shaking your head too vigorously, especially when so vociferously for yourself as you are in here, and why wouldn’t you be, afterall, as you see things.
You are, of course, dead wrong and laughably so, when you try to pin the label on me of being a Democrat – I’m not one and never have been one and don’t want to be one and I don’t support them or their coercive National Manifesto or Party Platform that does not allow for dissenting views here in America.
So there is some wind taken from your sails, as that old nautical expression goes for one sailing ship maneuvering so as to have its sail(s) steal air from the sails of another ship, thus slowing it down.
You jumped into a false presumption or assumption with both feet, only to find nothing but thin air beneath your feet, but you know what, Jane, this is the United States of America, the land of truth, justice and the American Way, and according to that American Way, which veterans like myself fought to preserve, you have every right given to you by Divine Providence to be wrong as other people do to be right and veterans like me will defend that right to the death.
And Jane, seriously here, isn’t it really just a bit arrogant and presumptive on your part, and I mean that sincerely as a friend, not someone hostile to your partisan political bias, to be giving all the credit for the chicken poop smell said to be becoming a part of the environment of Northampton County to Donald Trump, when the dude has really only just gotten into office to gut the environmental regulations at the federal level?
Don’t you think that right now the bulk of the credit for that accomplishment should really be going to local, county and state officials?
What are your thoughts on that side of the equation, which is the active side right now, anyway?
How would you apportion the responsibility?
The candid world has become very interested in you as a thinking, feeling human being with an inside view of things here, so they would rally like to know.
And to get to what is really the most important existential and philosophical question facing us in our times today as American citizens, if we only but knew it, and this is thanks to Cape Charles’ esteemed Jane Homeowner, that serious existential and philosophical question of hers being “And how did national level politics get into this,” the simplest and least verbose response to that is that national level politics have never been out of this, and how could they be, given that each and every one of us in here, including the highly esteemed Jane Homeowner, are We, the People in a government of, by and for the people.
There is no national level politics that is ever separate and apart from We, the People in this country.
There certainly are people in this country who were born here, and feel they have absolutely no citizenship responsibilities whatsoever, that is for somebody else, and that is not at all denied by myself in here as I know from my own life experiences that such people do in fact exist.
But at the same time, their denial of citizenship responsibilities does not exempt them or exclude them from being one of We, the People, however much they might wish to be separate and excluded, especially from responsibility for maintaining the environment in a healthful condition for others to enjoy.
In other words, while we all live in separate states, we are citizens of the federal, not the state governments.
Thus, all national level politics affect each of us, and frankly, we are fools waiting to be fleeced and gulled if we are silly enough to think otherwise. and sadly, many are.
As to national level politics adversely impacting the health and well-being of the people of Cape Charles and Virginia, consider this following from your own state Department of Environmental Quality website:
Overview
On behalf of the State Air Pollution Control Board, DEQ’s Air Division is responsible for carrying out the mandates of the Virginia Air Pollution Control Law, as well as meeting Virginia’s federal obligations under the Clean Air Act.
end quotes
Now, muse on the words “meeting Virginia’s federal obligations under the Clean Air Act” for a moment, and then ask yourself what happens to that mandate in the event we have a president just like this present incumbent who is bent of totally gutting and getting rid of those federal obligations.
If those federal obligations go away thanks to this seeming insane madman in the White House who is bent on allowing environmental destruction and devastation in the name of profits for those who can afford the $200,000 initiation fee and $14,000 yearly dues at the exclusive and private Mar-A-Lago Club in Florida, what does that then mean for your Department of Environmental Quality?
Something to think about, anyway, as you then consider these words from that same state of Virginia website:
The Air Division’s programs protect and enhance public health and the environment by controlling present and future sources of air pollution.
The division ensures the safety and quality of the air in Virginia by monitoring and analyzing air quality data, regulating sources of air pollution, and working with local, state and federal agencies to plan and implement strategies to protect Virginia’s air quality.
end quotes
Now, focus in on these words from that above as we all sit here and studiously ponder this question the esteemed Jane Homeowner has left us with, “how did nation level politics make their way into here”: working with local, state and federal agencies to plan and implement strategies to protect Virginia’s air quality.
What happens there when Donald Trump’s deregulation plan hamstrings or totally does away with those federal agencies as he plans on doing?
Will that have any impact on how the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality protects Virginia’s air quality so as to protect and enhance public health and the environment by controlling present and future sources of air pollution, given that some people down here are already smelling the distinctive odor of ripe chicken **** in the air, and it is not even August, when the humidity will be here?
And getting back to the Virginia website:
The state’s air quality programs develop and implement regulations, policy, and guidance, and pursue necessary enforcement actions, to ensure that the provisions of the Virginia Air Pollution Control Law and the Commonwealth’s responsibilities under the federal Clean Air Act are met.
end quote
We keep coming back to that, don’t we, people: the Commonwealth’s responsibilities under the federal Clean Air Act are met.
There is where national level politics come into this specific discussion, and I think we all owe the esteemed Cape Charles resident Jane Homeowner a debt of real, sincere gratitude for getting our attention focused on this important aspect of this above matter.
And taking one last look at that state website, we have as follows:
Core Responsibilities
*Developing and implementing programs designed to ensure that Virginia meets national air quality standards.
*Regulating the emission of air pollutants from industries and facilities by issuing and ensuring compliance with permits that set limits that protect public health.
*Monitoring Virginia’s air quality.
*Investigating complaints and violations of Virginia’s air quality laws.
*Developing state rules governing air quality standards
end quotes
Note that the first core responsibility is “developing and implementing programs designed to ensure that Virginia meets national air quality standards.”
When Donald Trump does away with the national air standards, what then happens to your state programs?
Or doesn’t it really matter, since your fate is sealed now, anyway, since the chicken **** is already here?
As to the citizenship role we American citizens were supposed to play with regard to what have been called in here “national level politics,” as in, “And how did national level politics get into this,” in matters affecting our health and well-being as human beings, I always thought that that was a question which had been addressed with finality by at the latest, maybe fifth grade, but over the years, and once again in here, in this thread, I have learned just how wrong I have been with that presumption, so since it is important, what I would to do is to drop back to that schoolboy and schoolgirl history with regard to citizenship responsibility and duty that once existed in this country, but apparently does not any more, and that for some long time now, at least a generation, if not more.
As to that schoolboy/schoolgirl history lesson on citizenship duties and responsibility we should have been familiar with as young Americans by the time we were ten, if not earlier, the best place to start would be the United States Supreme Court decision in Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. 1 (1849), Mr. Justice WOODBURY, dissenting, from which those citizenship lessons were derived, to wit:
Again, instead of controlling the people in political affairs, the judiciary in our system was designed rather to control individuals, on the one hand, when encroaching, or to defend them, on the other, under the Constitution and the laws, when they are encroached upon.
And if the judiciary at times seems to fill the important station of a check in the government, it is rather a check on the legislature, who may attempt to pass laws contrary to the Constitution, or on the executive, who may violate both the laws and Constitution, than on the people themselves in their primary capacity as makers and amenders of constitutions.
Hence, the judiciary power is not regarded by elementary writers on politics and jurisprudence as a power coordinate or commensurate with that of the people themselves, but rather coordinate with that of the legislature. Kendall v. United States, 12 Peters 526.
end quotes
The power of the federal judiciary, at least back in 1849, which admittedly is one hundred sixty-eight (168) years ago now, was not superior to, or even equal to that of We, the American People; to the contrary, the judiciary power is inferior to the political power of We, the People, and as stated above by Mr. Justice Woodbury, the judiciary power at the federal level is a check on the legislature, who may attempt to pass laws contrary to the Constitution, or on the executive, who may violate both the laws and Constitution, and not on the people themselves in their primary capacity as makers and amenders of constitutions.
That is us he is talking about there, people, or was, anyway – in this country, which is unlike any other and every other country on the face of the earth, here, We, the People are makers and amenders of Constitutions, and it was for that reason we were supposed to know our duties and responsibilities as American citizens, and the best time to learn those lessons is at a very early age.
Getting back to those schoolboy/schoolgirl lessons which apparently have been discarded in the intervening years due to the pernicious influence of party politics on our lives in America today, Mr. Justice Woodbury continued as follows:
Hence, too, the following view was urged when the adoption of the Constitution was under consideration:
“It is the more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.”
Federalist, No. 77, by Hamilton.
“Nor does the conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power.”
“It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both,”
end quotes
That is what I was taught when I was a young American – the power of the people is superior to that of both legislative power and the judiciary power, which is an awesome responsibility when you think on it, if people ever do today.
As to Levi Woodbury (December 22, 1789 – September 4, 1851), he was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a U.S. Senator, Governor of New Hampshire and cabinet member in three administrations, as well as being the first Justice to have attended law school.
So what happened, then?
How is it that we in the intervening years have become subservient to the executive and the legislature and the courts, as we are today?
For that answer, we really need go no farther than CHAPTER IX, THE UNITED STATES, of the essay series by Oreste Brownson in 1866 entitled THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, as follows, to wit:
The General government takes care of public authority and rights; the State protects private rights and personal freedom as against the General government: but what protects the citizens in their private rights, their personal freedom and independence, against the particular State government?
Universal suffrage, answers the democrat.
Armed with the ballot, more powerful than the sword, each citizen is able to protect himself.
But this is theory, not reality.
If it were true, the division of the powers of government between two co-ordinate governments would be of no practical importance.
Experience does not sustain the theory, and the power of the ballot to protect the individual may be rendered ineffective by the tyranny of party.
Experience proves that the ballot is far less effective in securing the freedom and independence of the individual citizen than is commonly pretended.
The ballot of an isolated individual counts for nothing.
The individual, though armed with the ballot, is as powerless, if he stands alone, as if he had it not.
To render it of any avail he must associate himself with a party, and look for his success in the success of his party; and to secure the success of his party, he must give up to it his own private convictions and free will.
In practice, individuals are nothing individually, and parties are every thing.
Even the suppression of the late rebellion, and the support of the Administration in doing it, was made a party question, and the government found the leaders of the party opposed to the Republican party an obstacle hardly less difficult to surmount than the chiefs of the armies of the so-called Confederate States.
Parties are formed, one hardly knows how, and controlled, no one knows by whom; but usually by demagogues, men who have some private or personal purposes, for which they wish, through party, to use the government.
Parties have no conscience, no responsibility, and their very reason of being is, the usurpation and concentration of power.
The real practical tendency of universal suffrage is to democratic, instead of an imperial, centralism.
What is to guard against this centralism?
Not universal suffrage, for that tends to create it; and if the government is left to it, the government becomes practically the will of an ever shifting and irresponsible majority.
Is the remedy in written or paper constitutions?
Party can break through them, and by making the judges elective by party, for short terms, and re-eligible, can do so with impunity.
No mere paper constitutions are any protection against the usurpations of party, for party will always grasp all the power it can.
end quote
And there it is, people, a very apt description of where it is that we are today here in the United States of America, where the power of the ballot to protect the individual has been rendered ineffective by the tyranny of party.
For parties to exist, they need money, and plenty of it.
To get that money, those parties, formed, one hardly knows how, and controlled, no one knows by whom; but usually by demagogues, men who have some private or personal purposes, for which they wish, through party, to use the government; and parties having no conscience, no responsibility, with their very reason of being the usurpation and concentration of power, those parties are very willing to sell us out when it comes to protection of our health, and so they have and so they do.
And it happens because those of us who do not give up to parties our own private convictions and free will have no way to stop it, with party being everything, especially with respect to control of the judiciary power, and us being nothing at all, or even less than that if we dare to challenge this corrupt status quo.
So what is the basic bottom line here, then?
Get used to the stink of chicken **** in your nostrils, for the future is now here.
And with respect to the comment of Jane Homeowner above where she said, “This thread sure got weird, fast,” my response would have to be, in the light of the authentic reality in here, it certainly did, and that weirdness came into this thread with that on-line publication QUARTZ article recently relating to this subject of public health protection entitled “Scott Pruitt requests funds for a 24/7 fleet of bodyguards, as the EPA is poised to cut health and safety programs” by Zoë Schlanger on 12 April 2017, wherein was stated in relevant part as follows:
The administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, historically, has had some measure of government-funded personal security detail.
But Scott Pruitt, the new EPA chief, wishes to be guarded 24/7.
While the draft budget for the EPA obtained by the Washington Post this month shows massive cuts to environment, health, and climate change programs—including the elimination of a program to prevent childhood exposure to lead paint—it also includes a request to hire 10 additional security guards to create an around-the-clock personal security detail for Pruitt, the New York Times reports.
end quotes
Now, when it comes to the various levels on which weirdness can exist, and they are many according to recent philosophical analysis of the subject, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt hiring an army of thugs and goons to protect him from his own staff while he cuts programs intended to protect the public’s health ranks as quite a high level of weirdness and surreality, indeed, near, if not, at the very pinnacle of weirdness as it can exist in the phenomenological world we all live in as American citizens.
To see how that weirdness coming to us from Scott Pruitt of the USEPA ranks at or near the top of the scale, his cutting of public health programs intended to protect the publics’ health in this country, while using that money to then surround himself with a private army of thugs and goons, those actions on his part have to be considered in the light of this following from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality website, to wit:
Overview
On behalf of the State Air Pollution Control Board, DEQ’s Air Division is responsible for carrying out the mandates of the Virginia Air Pollution Control Law, as well as meeting Virginia’s federal obligations under the Clean Air Act.
The Air Division’s programs protect and enhance public health and the environment by controlling present and future sources of air pollution.
end quote
And this from the Virginia Department of Health Office of Environmental Health Services (“OEHS”):
The mission of the OEHS is to protect public health by preventing the transmission of disease through food, milk, shellfish, water and sewage and to work in partnership with other agencies to protect the environment.
end quote
And this from the Eastern Shore Health District of the Virginia Department of Health:
Our mission is to prevent illness and disease, protect the environment, and promote optimal health and emergency preparedness for everyone on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
We are people of the community, for the community.
Our vision is to drive Virginia’s Eastern Shore to the peak of personal, environmental, and community health, setting an example for others to follow.
end quotes
What we are seeing expressed there by the State of Virginia, people, is the doctrine of state “police power,” which was adopted in early colonial America from firmly established English common law principles mandating the limitation of private rights when needed for the preservation of the common good.
It was one of the powers reserved by the states with the adoption of the federal Constitution and was limited only by the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause—which mandates preeminence of federal law in matters delegated to the federal government—and the individual rights protected in the subsequent Amendments.
The application of police power has traditionally implied a capacity to (1) promote the public health, morals, or safety, and the general well-being of the community; (2) enact and enforce laws for the promotion of the general welfare; (3) regulate private rights in the public interest; and (4) extend measures to all great public needs.
Now, in regard to what Scott Pruitt of the EPA is doing, cutting back on public health programs, while surrounding himself with thugs and goons to protect him from the American people, focus on this sentence, to wit:
The application of police power has traditionally implied a capacity to promote the public health, and the general well-being of the community.
end quotes
Isn’t that why we have a government in this country in the first place, people, to protect the public health, which is the health of each and every one of us, regardless of whether or not we can afford the $200,000 initiation fee and $14,000 yearly dues of U.S. president Donald Trump’s private and exclusive members-only Mar-A-Lago Resort in Florida.
Or is the general well-being of the community really on a graded scale based on riches, with the richest of us, like the members of the exclusive and private Trump Mar-A-Lago Resort, getting the best protection, while the poorest of us get nothing at all but empty rhetoric and flimsy excuses, as is the case in corrupt New York state, as can be seen in that 22 April 2017 letter above here from myself to New York State Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, Albany, NY, entitled RE: Hoosick Falls; who did know what, and when did they know it?; wherein is detailed for posterity, thanks to the CCM, the anatomy of a perfect cover-up in the corrupt state of New York, which serves to demonstrate just how easy public health protection can be swept away and kept away from a people who don’t know or don’t care about the law and how it is supposed to safeguard them.
All it takes is a Scott Pruitt to have it be so, and as Jane Homeowner made quite clear above here, if that is not weird, then likely nothing ever will be.
It seems to me that the pile of manure here is coming from the overinflated egos of humans who have turned the comment into a dissertation not the chickens. Spring on the Shore brings all kinds of unpleasant things like gnats, no seeums, allergies, ticks, snakes, the smell of marsh mud at low tide, mosquitos, crop dusters, and yes sometimes the smell of chicken manure. Fortunately most of these things are temporary and far outweighed by the pleasant things springtime on the Shore has to offer.
Overinflated egos, Cathy Buyrn?
Really?
What style of mathematics or calculus do you employ in your reasoning processes to come to that conclusion?
You state, apparently as an expert on the subject, which I will accept you as, that spring on the Shore brings all kinds of unpleasant things like gnats, no seeums, allergies, ticks, snakes, the smell of marsh mud at low tide, and mosquitos.
If you would but take a moment here to examine that list you have provided us with as our resident expert on such things, you will note that each and every one of those “unpleasant” to you things is provided free of charge to you by Mother Nature herself.
Not so with the industrial scale chicken**** producing facilities introduced in Accomack County by your fellow human beings, unless you maintain that the erection of those facilities and the stocking of them with the chickens are also random acts of nature or maybe God, who may well indeed be a fan of the chicken industry here in Cape Charles, and perhaps an investor, as well.
I live in the country, and have for the last almost 70 years, and as a result, I have smelled chicken**** before, and it usually isn’t in the spring, when all those other things you mention are coming forth – it is more likely to be in August, when the temperature gets quite a bit warmer and the humidity has gone up.
But this isn’t about me, and what I might have smelled in the last 70 years of life; to the contrary, it is about a potential public health nuisance being created on Cape Charles with apparently no oversight or concern whatsoever by the so-called “powers that be,” whoever in the end those inflated egos might be in actual person, in an area prone to groundwater contamination, not from all kinds of unpleasant things like gnats, no seeums, allergies, ticks, snakes, the smell of marsh mud at low tide, or mosquitos, but from the natural by-products of industrial scale chicken-raising facilities which in fact are huge waste-producing factories with processed chickens coming out of them as the actual by-product of the waste production.
It is about profits over human health and well-being, which is not at all confined to Cape Charles, Virginia.
It is about money first, which you would expect in a capitalist society, and human beings, second.
There, Cathy Buyrn, is really where the super-inflated egos enter into this discussion, not from anyone who has bothered to comment in here, because it does take the combination of a massive ego and a largely-empty head to think that you have the right to move an industrial operation into an area where people are already settled there ahead of you, dependent on groundwater for their very life and well-being, unless you think they should have to buy bottled water like we do up this way after some business has moved into town, whose owners live somewhere else in a better community, where their pollution won’t touch them, and has contaminated the groundwater to make it unpalatable and undrinkable.
Given a choice between unpleasant things like gnats, no seeums, allergies, ticks, snakes, the smell of marsh mud at low tide, or mosquitos, versus drinking contaminated or poisoned water, I’ll take the former, and leave you the latter, Cathy Buyrn.
Like I said the comment has been turned into a dissertation. The last time I checked chicken manure was in fact a product of Mother Nature and the use of many types of manure have been used to fertilize agricultural land for centuries. Perhaps you’d prefer the chemicals sprayed by the crop duster. I’m just a farmer’s wife. What would I know?
Cathy Buyrn, in the end, and I am sure that you have to know this as a farmer’s wife, since it is country wisdom I learned when young from the old mother who prepared my lunch when I was young and picking eggs at the neighbor’s chicken farm as my outside job, the only one who can really know, in the end, the true answer to the existential question you raise above here, “I’m just a farmer’s wife, What would I know?” is yourself.
The rest of us can guess at it, for sure, but only you can ever really know.
If you are going to go around always doubting what it is you know, while always asking somebody else what your opinion on something should be, I suspect you will find yourself being led down a garden path without a clue as to where it might in the end go.
As to chicken manure in fact being a product of Mother Nature, farmer’s wife that you are, Cathy Buyrn, you have no proof of that, since have you ever seen a chicken in the wild?
I haven’t.
Turkeys, yes, and grouse and partridge, but not chickens.
Even the pheasant is not natural and has to be constantly restocked to maintain their presence in the wild up here.
Up here, people who let their chickens run free range find out real quick that there a lot of things out there in nature that eat chickens pretty rapidly, which tells against their proliferation out there in the wild as wild creatures like the wild things out there that eat the chickens when the chickens come too close to Mother Nature.
But let’s grant your argument that chickens are a part of nature so that chicken manure is in fact a product of Mother Nature and consider that while that may be so, putting hundreds or thousands of them in small cages in industrial growing facilities is as far from Mother Nature as you can get.
That is a work of man, not Mother Nature, to concentrate all those chickens in so small an area.
I live in the country, Cathy Buyrn, where I have been since 1949 on a portion of an old farm first deeded in 1790, so I am a “been here,” not a “come here,” and what I learned when young is that when you rely on well water to drink, you don’t **** in your own water supply, and you don’t pile manure where it can foul water supplies, unless perhaps you are a natural born ****-eater who likes it that way, and lets be candid there, many seem to be or are.
And as natural as it may be, the chicken manure, that is, it happens to be a violation of our public health sanitary code up this way to foul or contaminate water supplies with manure.
It’s common sense, wouldn’t you think as a farmer’s wife, Cathy Buyrn, not to do so?
And common courtesy, as well?
Or am I wrong on that?
As to what it truly weird in here, it is not Stuart Bell being concerned about drug violence on Cape Charles, there is nothing weird about that, at all; to the contrary, what is really weird in here was Sonia Sotomayor in 2005 burying a police officer’s sworn affidavit and changing facts to protect endemic public corruption in corrupt Rensselaer County in corrupt New York state, and getting appointed to the United States Supreme Court by Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrats in the U.S. Senate as a result.
If that is not weird, Cathy Buyrn, nothing will ever be, but I think you know that as well as I do, so I won’t further belabor the point with you.
You mean, pleasant like Nassawadox Shore Stop late at night or White Rabbit or New Roads or Whithams or Coal Kiln or Trehearnville or maybe pleasant like the gangs and heroin trade that the citizens have allowed on The Shore due to Political Correctness or pleasant like the increased murder rate that has occurred due to allowing a certain group of the population to get out of control? It appears that the majority of folks can overlook these elements as long as there are Seafood Festivals, Birding Tours, Garden Tours, Clam Slams, Flounder Tournaments…ect You all better stop putting lipstick on a pig, find your voices and take The Shore back from the elements that are taking over, while you all went to the Hospital Ball or Champagne Preview of overpriced antiques at The Moose. The police and combined task force are and have done a poor job of their attempt to control that segment of your population. The Exmore PD allowed their cars and cops to appear in Rap Videos that further perpetuate That Culture….Pleasant Huh??
Mr. Bell, once again, your sideways rhetoric catches me flatfooted. You do realize, your not-so-subtle-tongue-in-cheek lambast of another’s culture serves only to diminish you. When you mention taking back the Shore from the elements taking over, who are you taking from? The moneyed agricultural landowners? Perhaps the deep pocketed real-estate robber barons? How about some of the power-hungry Board of Supervisors and their across the bay vulture friends? Just who are your taking the Shore from? Surely, you can’t mean the majority Black population, whose combine incomes would not equal any four-major land owning families presently living on the Shore. They have little to no power.
Yes, granted, the Eastern Shore has problems. Problems no different from the big cities that comprise the rest of Virginia. Only, less of them per population. Drugs, vice and general mayhem have been around for more than forty or fifty years. Illegalities and violence in the seafood trade have existed for generations, not to mention illegal hunting parties and their associates. Gangs, and an influx of illegal workers and the accompanying drug trade with its violence, are nothing new to the Shore. Whether law enforcement has a handle on this is anybody’s guess. But to single out one group (i.e. White Rabbit, Coal Kiln or Trehearnville – code for the African American and their communities) is to do a disservice to all other cultures now present and flourishing on the Shore. Can you put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak? It’s way too late for that, Mr. Bell, besides, what do you suggest? Build several large ships and send anyone who doesn’t look like you, speak like you, dance like you (you do dance…right?) eat the same foods as you and listen to the same music as you…packing? Doesn’t work that way, not in America…at least so far. Do you enforce the laws that are already on the books? Of course, you do. But, to disparage a large group of people because of the sins of a few is just plain bigotry. Some of these same folks, you accuse of being out of control, have families that have been here as long (if not longer) than the Bell family. And if history serves me well, were possibly part of the Bell family in one manner or another for some time, way before you or I.
My point is this: many of the Eastern Shore’s citizens are have contributed to the sustained progress and growth from small agricultural farms to vibrant seaside and bayside villages and businesses up and down the spine known as Route thirteen. Both blacks and whites and a few Latino’s have all contributed to wealth of many a farming community. The seafood industry also has benefited greatly by the contributions of the black workers willing to do the backbreaking labor within the culling, packing and shipping of the Bay’s bounty. I know you realize this. But you should not disparage a group, when a few bad apples are the ones that need to be brought to heel. In other words, culture is a subjective thing. Where one’s culture divide crosses another’s culture divide, it is not political correctness or alternative facts that causes us to be respectful of that divide. It is tolerance. Rap music and Salsa are not my cup of tea, either, Mr. Bell. But, I don’t disparage respective groups for listening to them. I prefer looking at the history of a particular group and its culture and find that thing that lifts them above the fray. That’s what I celebrate. I would hope others would see my culture in the same light. And considering from where I come from, a generous spirit would have to be in the offering.
And as far as that lip-stick wearing pig is concerned, you might want to think twice about wiping her makeup off and putting her back in the pen for slaughter. For it is the various activities such as Seafood Festivals, Birding Tours, Garden Tours, Clam Bakes and Oyster Roasts, Marlin and Flounder Tournaments that draw many visitors and their easy money to the beauty of the Shore. Money that helps build, maintain and sustain the infrastructure and vitality of the villages you call home. It is this same rich culture of Eastern Shore life that draws to it, like minded peoples to appreciate and enjoy the very way of life so many take for granted there. I am not lecturing you, Mr. Bell, just pointing out how good that pig looks when she’s all dolled up for a night at the Hospital Ball Charity Event, Champagne Preview or just strolling on a bayside beach at sunset.
The activities I speak of would never have been tolerated in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or 70’s on The Eastern Shore of Virginia. Modern Men have lost their voices. They feel that they cannot call out behavior that was not conductive to the society. I care little what you or anyone else thinks of me. I care that The Shore is becoming out of control with Murder, Heroin, and Gangs. I assure you those things would not be tolerated by past generations. The following Diatribe was gifted to me so I do not know or care who wrote it.
‘Whites are only 10% of the world’s population, yet are the most industrious, ingenious, and innovative race the world has known. Whites have formed nations, built civilizations, assumed and administrated power, created the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, the Industrial Revolution, automation, technology, the space program which landed men on the moon and launched probes exploring beyond the solar system, discovered electricity, created wonder drugs and architecture and have harnessed nuclear power, have unlocked the secrets of DNA and relativity, created computer science and the internet age…… sub-Saharan Africans still cannot even feed themselves.
No pre-contact sub-Saharan African society ever created a written language, or weaved cloth, or forged steel, invented the wheel or plow, or devised a calendar, or code of laws, or any social organization, or formal religion. or system of measurement, or math, or built a multi-story structure or bridge or sewer, or infrastructure of any kind, and they never harnessed a river, or even drilled well or irrigated, or built a road or railway or sea-worthy vessel, they never domesticated animals, or exploited underground natural resources, or produced anything that could be considered a mechanical device.
Blacks lived alone in sub-Saharan Africa, a vast continent with temperate climates and abundant resources for 60,000 years; so they cannot blame racism, poverty, imperialism or anything else for their failures. How could they live with all that shoreline and never contemplate putting a sail on a ship like every other culture did?
Blacks are the oldest race, they had a huge head-start so they should be the most advanced race; but they are the least advanced race.
19 of the 20 poorest countries are sub-Saharan African (Haiti). There has never been a successful Black country. No modern creations or civilization exists in sub-Saharan Africa that was not brought there by Whites.
There are no White Third-World nations.
Put Whites on an island and you get England; put Asians on an island and you get Japan; put Blacks on an island and you get Haiti.’
HEAR!!! HEAR!!!!!!!!!
Kudos, Chas Cornweller, very well said, no matter how it might be received in other quarters.
And on that note of the majority Black population, whose combined incomes would not equal any four-major land owning families presently living on the Shore, who themselves have little to no power, I wonder if you are aware that last week, North Carolina lawmakers passed House Bill 467 which limits the damages that residents could collect against hog farms primarily clustered in the eastern part of the state, where hog farms collect billions of gallons of untreated pig feces and urine in what are essentially cesspools, then dispose of the waste by spraying it into the air?
Not surprisingly, those residents living in the area of the spray complain of adverse health effects and odor so bad that it limits their ability to be outdoors.
According to Steve Wing, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health, the hog waste in the industrial scale hog-raising facilities down there falls through the floors, and is then flushed out into an open pit, like a cesspool, and when full, the pits are emptied by spraying the liquid waste into the air, where it then comes down like stinking, filth-infested rain on the people who live near where those industrial scale operations were sited.
House Bill 467, or the Agriculture and Forestry Nuisance Remedies bill, was introduced by Republican State Representative Jimmy Dixon, a longtime farmer, who has received campaign contributions from the hog industry.
The legislation comes as a class action suit brought by nearly 500 primarily African-American residents of eastern North Carolina seek financial compensation from Murphy-Brown, the state’s largest hog producer.
In an interview, Elsie Herring, a resident of Wallace, North Carolina, who is part of the complaint filed with the EPA seeking more protections for neighbors of hog farm operations, described living proximate to these facilities as follows:.
This is where they spray animal waste on us.
This is about eight feet from my mother’s house.
It’s like you think it’s raining.
You think it’s raining.
We don’t open the doors up or the windows, but the odor still comes in.
It takes your breath away.
Then you start gagging.
You get headaches.
end quotes
In another interview, a former pig factory farm owner named Don Webb had this to say about those operations:
I shut my hog operation down, and I got out of it.
And I couldn’t—I just couldn’t do another person that way, to make them smell that.
It is a cesspool that you put feces and urine in, a hole in the ground that you dump toxic waste in.
And I’ve seen dead hogs in them and stuff like that.
I’ve seen it.
I’ve talked to the people.
I’ve seen the little children that say, “Mom and daddy, why do we got to smell this stuff?”
You get stories like “I can’t hang my clothes out.”
“Feces and urine odor comes by and attaches itself to your clothes.”
And then people will say, “We’re scared to invite neighbors.”
end quote
And Will Hendrick, an attorney with Waterkeeper Alliance, had this to say about what the state of Carolina Legislature House Bill 467 is all about:
This bill is an attempt to protect polluters over people, to deny rights to the victims of nuisance caused by agricultural operations and to, indeed, deny equal rights to those who are disproportionately affected by those nuisance conditions.
The question of the scope of agricultural operations is an important one, because the state of North Carolina, unfortunately, does not know the location—its own environmental agency does not know the location of many of the poultry operations that are in the state.
Often, they are collocated with the hog operations we’ve been discussing.
As you alluded to, the hog operations are predominantly concentrated in low-income and minority communities, predominantly in southeastern North Carolina.
And the residents near these facilities experience significant impacts to their quality of life.
But it is important to note that this bill would reduce remedies, would reduce property rights for nuisance victims across the state, because it applies to any nuisance caused by any agricultural or forestry operation, which do span from the mountains to the coast.
end quote
Do you think perhaps the Virginia legislature and the powers-that-be in Accomack County are unaware of what is going on down in neighboring North Carolina with respect to reducing the protections of law for people living in close proximity to these large-scale operations such as the chicken industry on Cape Charles?
Would the state of Virginia act to put polluters over people, do you think, especially if and when the people being affected by the pollution are poor and without political power?
The majority of good people have always paid the ultimate price for the actions of a few bad people. Recess for classrooms of kids have been cancelled due to the bad behavior of a few kids. Liberty was cancelled due to the actions of a few sailors. Open carry of side arms has been forbidden to the majority of people due to the actions of a few bad people. You get the idea. When that happens the good should police the bad, but as Mr. Bell pointed out, humans have lost their ability to do so. Political Correctness has a lot to do with it. You words reek of a liberal democrat.
The statement “the majority of good people have always paid the ultimate price for the actions of a few bad people,” is very true and could be applied to many situations in this country from the time of its beginning.
It applies to the Viet Nam war, the Love Canal pollution, the PCB’s in the upper Hudson River, the Dewey Loeffel Landfill Superfund Site in corrupt New York state, the Storonske Cooperage Hazardous Waste Superfund site in corrupt New York state, both of which are located in corrupt Rensselaer County in corrupt New York state, and that list goes on and on and on and may well include these industrial chicken-producing sites on Cape Charles before all is finally said and done.
And yes, as you and Stuart Bell say, Todd Holden, when stuff like that happens, the good should police the bad, but how to do so?
How is that policing to be done, pray tell?
I am presently reading a book of the minutes of a committee on safety in Revolutionary New York state between 1776 and the end of hostilities, and at that time, if you were suspected of being a British spy, or of trying to enlist people for the British cause, you would be summarily tried by court martial and sentenced to be hung by the neck until dead.
So, that was one way it used to be done, anyway.
If you were a known Tory and would not swear an oath to be loyal to New York and renounce the British king, you and your family would be dispossessed of your property and removed to enemy lines, either in Canada or New York City, both of which were held by the British at that time.
So that was another way of doing it, the good policing the bad.
And how many cattle and horse thieves over the years met summary justice at the end of a rope?
So there is yet another way of doing it, the good policing the bad.
Vigilante justice was a very big part of American history and yes, American politics, as well, for who can forget that in the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures, having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate blacks to suppress their voting.
The White League was an American white supremacist paramilitary terrorist organization started in 1874 to turn Republicans out of office and intimidate freedmen from voting and political organizing.
Affiliated with the Democratic Party, it was one of the paramilitary groups described as “the military arm of the Democratic Party,” and through violence and intimidation, its members suppressed Republican voting and contributed to the Democrats’ taking control of the Louisiana Legislature in 1876.
The Red Shirts or Redshirts of the Southern United States were white supremacist terrorist groups that were active in the late 19th century after the end of the Reconstruction era of the United States, and they first appeared in Mississippi in 1875, when Democratic Party private terror units adopted red shirts to make themselves more visible and threatening to Southern Republicans, both white and freedmen.
The Red Shirts were one of several paramilitary organizations arising in the continuing efforts of white Democrats to regain political power in the South in the 1870s.
These groups acted as “the military arm of the Democratic Party” and they had one goal: the restoration of the Democrats to power by getting rid of Republicans, which usually meant repressing civil rights and voting by the freedmen, and during the 1876, 1898 and 1900 campaigns in North Carolina, the Red Shirts played prominent roles in intimidating non-Democratic voters.
Would those people say they were the good policing the bad?
Or would they even care?
But that is yesterday and this is today, so let us jump to this statement then, in the context of these chicken houses in Accomack county and the heroin epidemic, and the gangs, and the murders – “as Mr. Bell pointed out, humans have lost their ability to do so.”
My question is have we?
What exactly is the solution to this heroin epidemic, for instance?
Do like the thug in charge of the Philippines is doing by giving the police an order or directive to murder the drug dealers and drug users?
Who uses that ****, anyway?
According to a recent CBS NEWS article entitled “Navy SEAL drug use “staggering,” prompts internal intervention” by David Martin on 11 April 2017, “one of the most honored and respected segments of the U.S. military is battling an enemy within.”
According to that article, for the first time, Navy SEALs are talking publicly about drug abuse in the ranks:
“I’m sitting in this chair because I’m not proud anymore to be in the community because of the direction that it’s going,” said one of the Navy SEALs who came forward.
“People that we know of, that we hear about have tested positive for cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana, ecstasy,” said a SEAL.
“That’s a problem”
end quotes
But aren’t they supposed to be the good guys who are supposedly policing the bad guys?
How prevalent is drug abuse in the SEAL teams?
“I feel like I’m watching our foundation, our culture erode in front of our eyes,” said Capt. Jamie Sands, the commander of 900 SEALs based on the East Coast.
Sands had been on the job for just three months and already five SEALs had been kicked off the teams for using drugs.
“I feel betrayed,” Sands said.
“How do you do that to us?”
“How do you decide that it’s OK for you to do drugs?”
Before Sands spoke, his chief of staff rattled off what he called a “staggering” number of drug cases which he said showed that the Navy’s Special Operations had a higher incidence of drug use than the rest of the fleet.
“It’s a population that is supposed to be elite performers, all with classifications, to where they have national security information and responsibilities,” a SEAL told CBS News.
“That’s dangerous to my teammates.”
Another one said that “if we need your ability, I don’t need to be in the back of my mind thinking that, OK, can I really trust this guy?”
“Is he 100 percent going to cover my back?”
So why do SEALs take drugs?
“They think it was OK because they’ve seen other people do it,” Sands said in the video.
“They think their teammates won’t turn them in.”
“They think it’s kind of the cool thing to do, but they think it’s OK.”
A SEAL who blows the whistle on drug use does so at his own peril.
“You stand up for what’s right, and you get blackballed, or driven out,” one of the SEALs said.
Another agreed, saying “it’s a career killer.”
end quotes
Does Political Correctness have a lot to do with that, or is it really the lack of values that now prevails in this nation, Todd Holden?
And according to a MARKETWATCH article entitled “As Senator McCaskill investigates marketing of prescription drugs, fatal overdoses spike among white, middle-aged men” by Quentin Fottrell published Mar. 28, 2017, America, along with Cape Charles appears to be losing its battle against drug addiction.
According to that article, the rate of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2015, adjusted for age, was more than 2.5 times the rate in 1999, according to recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, due to a fall in the price of heroin and accessibility to prescription drugs, and the rate of drug overdose deaths increased from 6.1 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 16.3 per 100,000 in 2015, an average rise of 5.5% a year, the government agency concluded.
And there is one group of Americans for whom fatalities have spiked dramatically in recent years: Generation X and baby boomers.
Drug overdose deaths increased the most for adults aged 55 to 64, from 4.2 per 100,000 in 1999 to 21.8 in 2015, the last year for which data is available, up an average of 10.5% per year.
In 2015, adults aged 45 to 54 had the highest death rate from drug overdose at 30 deaths per 100,000.
And the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths among non-Hispanic white Americans was nearly 3.5 times the rate in 1999.
And, of those white middle-aged adults, the rise in drug fatalities has been more pronounced in recent years among men.
Four states with the highest overdose death rates were West Virginia (41.5 per 100,000), New Hampshire (34.3), Kentucky (29.9), and Ohio (29.9); some 17 other states had statistically higher rates than the national rate of 16.3 per 100,000.
Opioids — including prescription opioids and heroin — killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record, according to the CDC.
“Since 1999, the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled, yet there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain that Americans report,” the CDC reported.
In fact, deaths from prescription opioids — drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone — have more than quadrupled over the last 15 years.
And aren’t all those drugs produced by those who we would call the “good guys” in this country – you know, the capitalists?
So where is the solution?
And why is it that we have the problem?
Is it because we no longer do have “good guys” anymore in this country?
Think about it.
Barack Obama sluffed off doing cocaine as a teenager, calling it “a little blow,” and he became president as a result.
Sonia Sotomayor buried a police officer’s sworn affidavit, and changed facts, all out in the open while she was a circuit judge with the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City in order to make her bones and prove her political reliability by covering over and protecting endemic political corruption in New York state, and for that, she was made a U.S. supreme court justice.
Makes me think of a song by Kris Kristofferson from back when:
It’s gettin’ hard to tell what’s wrong from right
I can’t separate the winners from the losers anymore
And I’m thinking of just giving up the fight
‘Cause it’s hard to be a Christian soldier when you tote a gun
Well, the inherent incorrectness of both your comments and Mr. Bell’s comments practically leaps off the page. But, I prefer to rebut your comment. First, open carry is NOT forbidden in Virginia. All gun ownership requires permits. Secondly, though it may be true liberties may have been canceled due to the actions of a few, I remember many a recess where I sat inside, scribing out the multiplication tables or describing and promising never to do again, whatever action I may have taken multiple times (to serve my memory well, I am sure) while my classmates ran and screamed in the sunlight. And yes, the good should police the bad. All neighborhoods are beholden to watch not only their own, but their neighbor’s property as well. But, the failure to do so is not due to political correctness. The failure lies within the frustrations of the neighbors. Especially in poorer neighborhoods where the elderly live. They live in total, abject fear. They see the firsthand the criminal element at work. They hear the threats and feel the eyes on them whenever they cross paths. It is total, unmitigated fear, not political correctness that keeps people uneasy and reticent. But you would know that, if you had empathy for others. As I heard recently at the police commencements given here in my hometown, the Chief of Police was once told by an elderly woman that she prays whenever she hears gunshots. The Chief answered her, yes…that’s fine, but would you mind dialing 911 before you start to pray? I think that makes my point. As far as my politics are concerned, you don’t know me from Adam. I could be a Communist Anarchist Right Wing Nut job, for all you know.
A Communist Anarchist Right Wing Nut job, Chas Cornweller?
Is that even metaphysically possible?
Wouldn’t you at the same time be meeting yourself both coming and going?
Wouldn’t you find yourself in a constant state of warfare with yourself with one side of your mouth hurling oaths and imprecations at the other, back and forth, back and forth, all day long and well into the dark of night without cease?
Although with recent advances in the science of brain plasticity, I suppose it would be possible for one brain hemisphere to be the lefty Communist Anarchist while the other is the Right Wing Nut job, and if you can keep them somehow separate from each other, and balanced, I suppose it is possible to be both or all at the same time, and still, come across as quite sane and rational in a global forum such as this is.
And since you do come across as quite sane and rational in here, Chas Cornweller, despite how that may be taken by any others in the candid world who read your words, let us go to your statement above that “the good should police the bad,” and let me ask you, who are these “good,” and who are these “bad,” and how is it possible anymore in these confused times we now find ourselves in to even tell the difference?
And to illustrate exactly what I mean about “these confused times” we now find ourselves in, which to the north of you have been confused for some quite long time with respect to sorting out who is a “good” guy and who is a “bad guy,” let me drop back in time to a TROY RECORD editorial dated 4 APRIL 1989, and entitled “Give Paul Plante a break,” wherein is stated:
Trying to form an opinion on the entire Paul Plante episode is an exercise in frustration.
Some of those who were his sharpest critics back when he was giving developers a hard time are now trying to delude the public into thinking they are his staunchest defenders.
Some county officials who appeared to be among his defenders initially now sound as though they would just as soon be rid of him.
This much is pretty clear: He is headstrong, possesses a pretty good temper and is honest to a fault.
end quote
“Honest to a fault,” Chas Cornweller, or should it be in government or public service that honesty such as I possessed was a fault, and that fault, or personality flaw, rendered me unfit and unsuitable to be in public or government service?
Have we become a nation of untrustworthy liars, do you think, to the point of where honesty in a public official, especially one charged with upholding and enforcing the law, is something to be abhorred and attacked and eliminated if detected, as was the actual case in the “Paul Plante episode” in corrupt Rensselaer County in the corrupt state of New York?
Getting back to the edit0rial:
The latter (honest to a fault) has not been challenged even by his attackers.
As a matter of fact, that appears to be the bone they have to pick with him – that he is too honest and is unyielding in his honesty.
What this has meant to Mr. Plante is that he is being attacked from all sides and, to defend himself against the attacks, he has expended all his financial resources.
At the end of last week, even his attorney, who had been doing a fine job in his defense, deserted him.
Perhaps “deserted” is too strong a word.
Attorney Lewis Oliver withdrew from Mr. Plante’s defense because the embattled county environmental health director ran out of money to pay his attorney for the legal services.
Because of delays caused by legal maneuvering, Mr. Oliver’s bill for legal services already is in the thousands of dollars.
end quotes
Where do “good” and “bad” really lie in real life, Chas Cornweller, as opposed to being philosophical or metaphysical concepts for religionists to debate and ponder?
The editorial then concluded as follows:
Enough is enough.
County Executive John L. Buono should direct his attorney to stop playing games with Paul Plante’s life and professional reputation.
Every day costs money, not just Mr. Plante’s, but that of county taxpayers.
Bring the hearings to a close as expeditiously as possible and then address the real issue:
Was Paul Plante just an honest government employee who followed the rules and insisted others do the same?
Somebody in county government must have the intestinal fortitude to face this issue.
end quote
But you know what, Chas Cornweller?
Nobody did!
Why?
Because intestinal fortitude has been bred out of us, and especially what passes for our “politicians,” and besides, it would be like snitching on your SEAL buddy who is doing drugs – it is a career breaker.
And to give you an idea of what had been going on that triggered those hearings in question, all we need do is turn to a U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE – FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Report dated JUNE 30, 1989, which incidentally was buried by Sonia Sotomayor in 2005, wherein was stated:
During the time that these hearings were proceeding, the New York State Department of Health produced a report which was predicated on a request by [DELETED BY FBI CENSORS] to investigate allegations of “misfeasance and malfeasance made by Paul Plante against the Rensselaer County Department of Health.”
This REPORT, dated March 15, 1989, advised that, “the investigation found significant deficiencies in the Rensselaer County residential subdivision program and individual sewage program.”
“We conclude that there has been inadequate oversight by the county Board of Health, inadequate supervision by the county Director of Public Health, insufficient support by the County Executive Office (the position of Environmental Health Director was vacant for four years) and failures of previous environmental health directors to enforce and follow the County Sanitary Code during the time period studied.”
******
Under the “FINDINGS” section of this report, the report stated “whenever documentation could be found, Paul Plante was found to be accurate in his statements of inappropriate code reviews.”
end quotes
You say, Chas Cornweller, that “All neighborhoods are beholden to watch not only their own, but their neighbor’s property as well,”, and in reply, based on that FBI Report above, I would say that that is exactly what I was doing back then, and after, and for that, my life and professional career were destroyed, finally by Sonia Sotomayor as a circuit judge on the federal 2d Circuit court of Appeals in NYC in 2005, which action on Sotomayor’s part proved her political reliability and thus, propelled her to a seat on the United States Supreme Court.
So, yes, Chas Cornweller, as you can well see, the failure to do so is not due to political correctness, not at all.
The failure is due to something else entirely!
I do not wish to know you, I cannot imagine calling another man ‘Chas’.
Mr. Bell said it best:
‘Put Whites on an island and you get England; put Asians on an island and you get Japan; put Blacks on an island and you get Haiti.’
Heroin, like pretty much else in our capitalistic society, tkenny, is a marketable commodity.
It is a marketable commodity because there is a market for it, and right now, that happens to be a major market, right across the United States of America.
Up here to the north of you, in Democrat young Andy Cuomo’s corrupt ****hole of New York, there has been an epidemic of heroin use for several years now, to the point of where younger people up this way are likely to know of classmates of theirs or parents of classmates who have OD’d and died from the ****, and that has nothing to do with “economic opportunities are low,” since we are talking about people in upscale communities out in the burbs.
If there were not people using the ****, like Conestoga wagons and “Brown Bess” muskets, there would be no marketplace to exploit.
But there is a marketplace, so in grand capitalist fashion, it is being exploited, end of that story.
As to Mr. Stuart Bell being in your words a racist, your indignation, as proper as you might feel it to be, is pretty much wasted, since above here, he has already self-proclaimed himself as one, and has made it clear that he really does not give a damn about what polite society might think of him for that admission.
As the saying goes, he is quite comfortable inside his own skin with his view of the world, and all the indignation you, Hillary Clinton and the whole of the Democrat party can muster against him is not going to change his views one whit.
That there are “people of color,” or black people, who are wise and productive citizens who don’t fit his stereotype of black people is really quite immaterial to Mr. Bell.
His views are formed, and that it that.
His bias is not implicit; to the contrary, it is quite explicit, as stated above, and as I say, you are wasting wind trying to make Mr. Bell see matters any differently than he does right now.
And in actuality, tkenny, the grand and glorious United States of America, which Hillary Clinton calls “exceptional,” is full of racists, and not all of them have skin that is white.
If we go back to WWII and the Rape of Nanjing, in China, you will find that the Japanese considered the Chinese to be their racial inferiors, and thus, treated them as such.
Throughout human history, tkenny, if you ever bothered to study it, you would be continually confronted with racism, where one people consider their neighbors to be their racial inferiors.
Throughout human history, you cannot escape racism, as deplorable as it might be considered.
In fact, I would say based on my own face-to-face “meeting” with her that now-United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has some very definite problems with racial bias and animus towards “people of white color,” but in her case, that is tolerated because she is a “minority.”
Do I condone racism?
That would be asking if I condone the smell of marsh mud in the spring on Cape Charles, Virginia, or snakes, or black flies, or mosquitos.
That is perhaps why the first verse of “Wayfaring Stranger” starts as follows:
“I am a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this world of woe!”
“Chas’ is the commonly accepted diminutive of Charles. Not meant to be an insult.
It’s like John is also Jack.
And Bob’s your uncle!
He’s right, you know!
5/13/2017 – Withams Woman Sentenced On Herion Distribution Charge
5/27/2017 – Onancock Woman Arrested for Armed Robbery at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church –
Mr. Bell is right again….the woman was not a white Baptist.
Nov 16, 2017 -Cleveland Sentenced in Northampton Court for Second Degree Murder
And Again, He is Right.
Jan 22, 2018 Two Shot in Altercation on Mary N. Smith Road Early
Posted at 7:08 AM, Apr 13, 2020 and last updated 7:08 AM, Apr 13, 2020
U.S. Marshals: Bloods gang member on the run from attempted murder charges in Accomack County
It must be those pesky, white baptist again.
5/27/2017 – Onancock Woman Arrested for Armed Robbery at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church –
Again, Mr. Bell is right. It was not a White Baptist.
Todd Holden, it is not disputed that you seem to have a problem with drugs and lawlessness and criminal activity down there on the east shore as Stuart Bell says.
No one is disputing the criminal activity.
The problem comes about when that criminal activity on the east shore is attributed to every black person in the United States, as if all black persons were criminals because some black persons, or persons of color, are criminals.
6/20/2017 – Robins to be Tried in Accomack Circuit Court for Murder of Fardale Antonio Johnson.
Again, Mr.Bell is right.
11/14/2017 Five Arrested in a Murder for Hire Plot
Again he is right.
Rogers Brothers Indicted
May 24, 2018 By admin Leave a Comment
By Linda Cicoira — Three brothers were accused of selling cocaine and other drugs in indictments brought by a Northampton Grand Jury earlier this month. The court records were made public Monday.
One of the defendants, Roquan Lee’teq “Cake” Rogers, 19, of Benjamin Banneker Road in Exmore, was accused of being the shooter in an October 2017 murder-for-hire scheme in Accomack last year. The victim, an Eastern Shore Drug Task Force informant, had testified about a week earlier in the cocaine distribution trial of Roquan Roger’s brother, Akeem Markiese Rogers, 27, of Madame CJ Walker Lane in Exmore.
Roquan Rogers and another brother, Rovonte L. Rogers, 22, with addresses at Madame CJ Walker Lane, and Banneker Road in Exmore, were indicted on six drug offenses on May 11. Akeem Rogers was indicted on nine counts. All the charges stem from April 14, 2017, incidents.
Again he is right….those pesky Baptist at it again.
Convictions on 3 of 12 Counts in Murder-for-Hire Trial
August 16, 2018 By admin Leave a Comment
By Linda Cicoira — The suspected shooter in a murder-for-hire case was convicted by an Accomack Circuit Court jury Friday of three counts of conspiracy. The panel was deadlocked on nine other counts including the attempted capital murder of an Eastern Shore Drug Task Force informant and his then-girlfriend last Halloween in the Boston area of Painter.
And again Mr. Bell is correct.
Tyvon Smith Pleads Guilty and Is Sentenced in Northampton MAY 4, 2021
An Accomack County man associated with the Bloods gang who, for roughly the last decade, has avoided convictions on multiple felony charges including first degree murder, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years imprisonment for felony charges related to a routine traffic stop in January 2020 that led to an arrest, escape, and a month-long search for the missing suspect.
Again Mr.Bell is right……4 years since this article was posted and you people have still done nothing about these pesky Canadian Baptist.
Funny to me that Cathy Buyrn mentions the smell of marsh mud at low tide as unpleasant. I can remember as a kid, going out on my paper route run at five in the morning, smelling the fragrant offerings of the creek’s mudflats on my trek to gather and secure my morning’s newspapers. Even today, the smell reminds me of home, early mornings and the vivacious circle of life and death in those vast ecosystems. I can still remember the silky feel of the mud as it oozed between my toes whenever I took a stroll over those flats at low tide. Ms. Buyrn, I am guessing you are what Shore folk like to call a “Come Here” and if I am wrong, I cannot for the life of me understand your reasoning on the odors of the flats at low tide. To me, it’s a beautiful thing…it’s home to me. But, to each their own.
Yes I am a Come Here, but as the wise George Rayfield once told me “It isn’t about being born here, or coming here, it is about staying here.” I don’t love the smell of marsh mud at low tide or chicken manure in the spring, but I respect that it is part of the nature and agricultural process here. People don’t mind living next to the wheat field when the golden waves of wheat are wafting in the wind, but as a farmer’s wife I understand all too well that it doesn’t just appear that way without the use of chemicals or natural fertilizers.
George was a nice man, but he was a drunk.
Stuart Bell, I’m not sure what you mean that people feel that they cannot call out behavior that was not conductive to the society? I have no problem calling you the racist that you are and YOUR attitude is definitely not conductive to society. Maybe under your name you should have the moniker “If it ain’t white, it can’t be right!”
Murder, heroin and gangs are “tolerated” anywhere economic opportunities are low, it has nothing to do with color.
The word racist has been used so much, over the last eight years, that it no longer has any impact. You people have worn that word completely out. If The Shore’s murders, gangs, and heroin has nothing to do with color then why are they not White Baptist involved? Or why not Russian Orthodox? You can tell the race involved by simply reading most news headlines and then reading the names of those involved.
If the shoe fits wear it.
By the way, maybe you should use your real, full name?
What is a tkenny?
Suspect Sought in Shooting near Accomac
MARCH 26, 2020
Two reported missing found dead with gunshot wounds: Accomack Sherrif
Lucas Gonzalez, Salisbury Daily Times Published 11:45 a.m. ET March 26, 2020 |
Must be those pesky French Canadians again?
Man Shot at Large Gathering in Mappsville
SEPTEMBER 15, 2020
Again Mr. Bell is right. I bet it was a large Methodist Picnic.
https://www.easternshorepost.com/2022/10/17/police-investigating-fatal-shooting-near-painter/
Those pesky canadians are at it again…
Those pesky Canadians are at it again.
https://shoredailynews.com/headlines/three-indicted-for-concealing-dead-body-of-28-year-old-salisbury-woman/
A tkenny is a coward.
ONE ARRESTED ANOTHER SOUGHT IN SECOND PAINTER CORNER MART ROBBERY
Mar 30, 2018…
Again he is right.
Those pesky Canadians again.
GREENWOOD MAN WANTED FOR MURDER ARRESTED IN HORNTOWN
Mar 29, 2018
…….and again, he is right.
‘After cocaine and alcohol fueled rape, man gets over 12 years in jail’
Those pesky Canadians again for sure.
RACE
Congressional Hearing On Slavery Reparations Set For Wednesday
June 18, 201910:26 PM ET
Richard Gonzales at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., September 27, 2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)
RICHARD GONZALES
UN-FUNKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!
I heard the holier-than-thous who want to impose a special tax on white folks in America so that black folks can get some extra money off WHITEY to pay them for being slaves talking about the “sin of slavery in America” as the reason for the reparations the white folks of today would have to pay to the black folks of today and frankly, since slavery is condoned by the Christian Bible, where exactly is the “sin of slavery” coming from?
I wouldn’t give them the sweat off my a$$ if they were thirsty. It is time for them to sink or swim….on their own, for a change.
MELFA MAN PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN ALVIN LEE “DEREK” ROGERS MURDER
Sep 17, 2020
The suspect in the May 2019 homicide of Alvin Lee “Derek” Rogers, of Belle Haven, entered pleas of not guilty Thursday to premeditated murder, armed robbery, and related firearms offenses.
Bronta Jamar Ames, 24, of Killmontown Road, in Melfa, entered the pleas at an arraignment in Accomack Circuit Court. He has been in jail since he was arrested a short time after the offenses occurred. Ames was indicted on the charges in December 2019. Court records show trials were set and then continued twice, likely due to the pandemic. Ames wants a jury to decide his fate.
Again, he is right. Those pesky Canadians at it again.
Parksley Man’s Death Being Investigated as Homicide
SEPTEMBER 15, 2020
Again he is right
Man Charged with Murder in Shooting Death in Onancock
MARCH 9, 2021
Again, Mr. Bell is correct. Those pesky Canadian Baptist are up to their tricks.
Those pesky Canadians are at it again…
https://shoredailynews.com/headlines/trial-set-for-14-year-old-accomack-youth/
Once again, Mr,Bell is right.
He is right again. Those pesky Canadian Methodist at their old tricks.
On April 18 at approximately 8:26 a.m., the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a male suffering from a gunshot wound to the head in the 25000 block of Dennis Drive Parksley.
Upon deputies arrival they discovered an unresponsive male suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.
What’s your name, little girl, what’s your name?
tkenny, as we read about people in your neighboring state of North Carolina having their most basic human rights stripped from them by the state of North Carolina which is allowing pig **** and urine to be sprayed on them to boost the profits of the corporate hog producers in that area, which may prove to be an elegant solution to the looming problem of what you do with all the chicken**** in Accomack County on Cape Charles, Virginia; and children in Hoosick Falls in corrupt Rensselaer County in the corrupt state of New York having to drink water laden with the carcinogen PFOA because of intentional negligence and denial of honest services to those children by the County of Rensselaer and the state of New York, and children in Flint, Michigan, who had to drink lead-tainted water, because of negligence by the EPA and government officials in Michigan, coupled with denial of honest services, which is a constant theme here in America, anymore, profits before people, because we have too many people, we can afford to lose some along the way, while making some big bucks off of them, their families and insurance companies as they decline, while we can never have enough profits, for who can live comfortably on only a million dollars today, I personally would like to thank you on behalf of a grateful nation for bringing this discussion back around to where it really needs to be, and that is some serious and in-depth discussion on the important existential question of what exactly Stuart Bell meant when he said that people feel that they cannot call out behavior that is not conductive to the society, which in and of itself is a topic that should be of great importance to every person alive not only in the United States today, but in the candid world as well, where the military might of the United States is projected, too often by people with small brains and scattered wits, but even more importantly, when we hear about Sonia Sotomayor, now a United States Supreme Court Justice, burying evidence and changing facts while a circuit judge on the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in NYC in 2005 to prove her political reliability to be a Supreme Court Justice, what is conduct not conductive to society in the first place?
What society, tkenny?
You call out Stuart Bell for having an “attitude” definitely not conductive to society, and perhaps in some circles or places, that would be deemed to be so, but what of these people in North Carolina who protect their profits by spraying pig **** and urine on other people in North Carolina?
Where does “society” fit in there, tkenny?
And what of the attitudes of those people who are doing that spraying?
Because they are good capitalists who are producing a goodly profit for the shareholders, and members of the government in North Carolina, or those who take their money anyway, to “carry their water” for them in the North Carolina legislature, are their attitudes about spraying pig **** and urine on people conductive to the society?
Which takes us back to what the hell society is that then, that benefits when one group of people, the ones with political power and clout, get to spray pig **** and urine on people without political power and clout.
And what of Sonia Sotomayor, tkenny?
By your system of calculus, does her action of burying evidence and changing facts to protect endemic public corruption in corrupt Rensselaer County in the corrupt ****hole of New York to gain a political benefit for herself stem, do you think, from an attitude that is conductive to the society?
And if not, why aren’t you calling her out for condemnation, as you are calling out Stuart Bell, and him for only having an opinion and an attitude that you don’t like, whereas the actions of Sotomayor in 2005 are responsible for God alone knows how much harm in New York state thanks to her embrace of public corruption in this state for which she will never be held accountable?
I haven’t taken the time read all of the dissertation comments here, but a quick skim suggests that chicken poop has led to topics such as guns and heroin. Yeah …that is just weird.
CC Mirror,, I hope you are charging Paul Plante by the inch to post his stream of consciousness musings. That go on . . . and on . . . and on.
Marita Patterson, so good to see you!
I hope this greeting finds you in good health and prospering.
And I can tell by the plaintive tone of your missive above that I owe you an apology, so without further ado, so as to not tax your mind any more than it obviously already has been taxed by my posts, let me sincerely say to you how sorry I am for you that you find my posts so hard for you to read, because they contain too many words and thus, are beyond your ability to comprehend.
Being unable to read in these modern times is a serious affliction, indeed, and thus, as a very compassionate person, I feel deep pain that you suffer from this affliction, to the point of being reduced to begging the management of the Cape Charles Mirror to greatly restrict the length of my posts to a few words, or perhaps a phrase or two of meaningless gibberish.
Yes, I know, Marita, having to read more than a couple of words at a time can be very mentally challenging, taxing and tiring and in this day and age, where people now can barely assimilate even the 140 characters of a TWEET such as the one United States president and commander-in-chief Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) sent out on May 18 saying “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history,” as if that blurb could possibly convey any useful information whatsoever about anything, where the author makes a blanket assumption that the reader would have to know exactly what the writer was referring to with the admittedly catchy phrase, “single greatest witch hunt,” so that no further clarifying or qualifying details are necessary, so that my style of writing, using real words strung together in sentences to form paragraphs to convey thoughts and ideas is very much now out of style and vogue and is quite anachronistic, harkening back, I must admit, to a time when people in America actually could read an essay that was a page or more in length, and it is there where I owe you the apology, for mistaking you for one of those people, when clearly, by the plaintive tone of your missive above, that presumption on my part was totally unwarranted by the facts of the matter, as you have certainly clarified them above here for us.
So, Marita, I sincerely hope you will accept my humble apology for giving you more than you are able to handle in here with the length of my posts, and I hope you have a very pleasant day, and a chance to get out there and smell that clean ocean breeze!
Editor’s Note: Okay, we have been trying to kill this thread for a while, so this it. Unfair or not, Mr. Plante gets the last word here.
Hear! Hear! Paul.
Mr. Editor-Man,
Why on Earth would you want to:
‘Okay, we have been trying to kill this thread for a while,’????
Mr. Editor Man Note: Because it was getting off topic, and spinning towards personal attack vs. argument.
If it were not for me, race would never be discussed. If it is never discussed, it will never change. Political Correctness keeps the lid on it.
I would reply, Stuart Bell, that discussing “race” in a public forum such as I have found this to be, a forum more dedicated to sharing information than opinion, is really a waste of space that serves no purpose whatsoever that I have ever been able to discern.
I personally have studied the history of diverse populations and civilizations back thousands of years, and in all that time, say 4,000 years as a rough figure, there have always been people of different races.
So what can be gained talking about race some 4,000 years later?
In support of the answer that talking about race today serves no purpose other than giving one person of one race a platform, like Archie Bunker in his easy chair, to demean all the other races that are not his race, as if Archie Bunker was a superior specimen of anything other than a bigoted, ignorant fool, I drop back in time to this nation’s beginning days, and I would quote from Crito by Samuel Hopkins in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, an early version, perhaps of today’s Cape Charles Mirror, in my mind, anyway, on October 06, 1787, where the author talks about the black folks in this country at that time, as follows:
But until this be done (slavery abolished), this business (selling slaves) must be unavoidably viewed in the most disagreeable, odious, horrible light, by us.
And we must be suffered to consider, and lay before the public some of the great aggravations which attend the continuation of this practice by us in these American States.
end quotes
This is in 1787, now, 230 years ago, before the U.S. Constitution was ratified, but after the Declaration of Independence and the war of revolution.
With respect to that war and its affect on American thinking with respect to race, the author, a learned man, continued as follows:
When the inhabitants of these States found themselves necessarily involved in convention with Britain, in order to continue a free people, and had the distrusting prospect of a civil war, they, being assembled in Congress, in October 1774, did agree and resolve in the following words:
“We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next: After which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade; and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures, to those who are concerned in it.”
This reasonable, noble and important resolution, was approved by the people in general, and they adhered to it through the war; during which time there was much publicly said and done, which was, at least, an implicit and practical declaration of the unreasonableness and injustice of the slave trade, and of the slavery in general.
It was repeatedly declared in Congress, as the language and sentiment of all these States, and by other public bodies of men, “that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
“That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:“
“That all men are born, equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, among which are the defending and enjoying life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
“By the immutable laws of nature, all men are entitled to life and liberty.” etc. etc.
The Africans, and the blacks in servitude among us, were really as much included in these assertions as ourselves; and their right, unalienable right to liberty, and to procure and possess property, is as much asserted as ours, if they be men.
And if we have not allowed them to enjoy these unalienable rights, but violently deprive them of liberty and property, and are still taking, as far as in our power, all liberty, and property from the nations in Africa, we are guilty of a ridiculous wicked contradiction and inconsistence: and practically authorize any nation or people, who have power to do it, to make us their slaves.
end quotes
Strong words and powerful sentiments, Stuart Bell, and as an American who went into combat and shed blood in defense of this country’s true values, which are those expressed right there above in 1787, not the crap and drivel we hear today from demagogues such as Hillary Clinton, and as an American, I adhere to them.
People with black, or brown, or yellow, or polka dot skin for that matter are as American as I am if they are an American citizen, and no less, just as in theory, anyway, I am not less than they are.
That is called REPUBLICANISM.
Getting back to American values on race as they were expressed back in 1787, we have:
The whole of our war with Britain was a contest for Liberty: By which we, when brought to the severest test, practically adhered to the above assertions, so far as they concerned ourselves, at least, and we declared, in words and actions, that we chose rather to die than to be slaves, or have our liberty and property taken from us.
We viewed the British in an odious and contemptible light, purely because they were attempting, by violence, to deprive us, in some measure, of those our unalienable rights.
But if at the same time, or since we have taken or withheld these same rights from the Africans, or any of our fellow men, we have justified the inhabitant of Britain in all they have done against us, and declared that all the blood which has been shed in consequence of our opposition to them, is chargeable on us.
end quotes
Can any of that be logically argued against, Stuart Bell?
To argue otherwise to be forced to defend the argument that black people are not people, but a form of beast of burden.
Can you logically sustain that argument with facts, Stuart Bell?
My infantry battalion commander in Viet Nam, who I addressed as “sir,” was a black person, and he was as human as I , and perhaps when it came to personal dignity, as you would expect of a lt. colonel, he at that time perhaps had more than I, and so served as a role model for me, who happen to be “white,” or more properly, flesh-toned when compared to different crayons in the crayon box.
So am I white, then, Stuart Bell?
Or am I really flesh-toned?
To say that I am white when the crayon box says I am flesh-toned is to say that somehow, in some fundamental way, even crayons in this country today can no longer be trusted to tell us the truth, and if that is truly so, Stuart Bell, then this is a sad day indeed that we have arrived at in this highly divided nation.
Those are my thoughts on it, anyway.
Why don’t we just start calling this section The Paul Plants column? After all, he does seem to monopolize the column. I,for one, am tired of reading his lengthy responses. No one needs to use fifty dollar words to get a simple point across to others. Narcissistic much??? Geez….
Why then do you read it? He is a Viet Nam Vet for starters. That alone gives him the right to write as he pleases. You may do well to run along and play if the conversation or words are too much for you. From what you write you appear to be under 30 years old. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram may help you. Run along now, adults are talking.
Nobody wants to see the Copypasta Master and the Condescending One keep bouncing the “Chicken Poop” thread to the top of Recent Comments. Please archive this mess. Good Lord.
Editor’s Note: Agreed. Time to move on to the next big thing.
Actually, I am not under 30. Almost double that. I am also highly educated. If you have ever read the news or keep up with Eastern Shore Happenings, you would already know that. I appreciate the service of Paul Plante to our country and salute him. I do, however, think his focus should be on the area in which he lives.
Editor’s Note: Ms. Marshall has responded, and that is the last comment to this thread.
They should use the local shellfish as fertilizer – For example grow enough oysters & clams & then the shells can be ground up into organic fertilizer that would then be sprayed onto the fields.
This would be a safe alternative to the chicken poo.
The people complaining about chicken shit are the same ones who need their food “organic”. Well this is how you take chemicals out of the mix.
All of the food that humans consume is organic, meaning that it is derived from carbon based life.
Let us use the word correctly, not just for profit.
Ignorance sure is bliss, in a land of fools.
Hey, Briar Rabbit, DUDE!
Long time no see as that old saying goes!
I think I am one of your biggest fans, to be truthful!
I still tell young people that story of “DON’T GO INTO THE BRIAR PATCH” as a moral lesson, and you know what, dude, and this won’t surprise you, like Brer Fox and Brer Bear, in they go regardless, which I tell the next bunch is what happens when fools like Pinochio and Jimmy Lampwick believe the HORSE**** the PROGRESSIVES are peddling about everything is going to be free (I myself never charge a mouse for the cheese I bait the trap with) so that they go over to the Land of Toys, a place where the PROGRESSIVES have told them boys spend their days having fun, education and study are nonexistent and the holidays start on the first day of January and end on the last of December.
However, as you probably recall, like the ones who believe this PROGRESSIVE horsecrap about not having to work and getting paid anyway, their laughter soon turned to animal brayings and the two transformed into a pair of donkeys, at which point I will pause and ask the young people, “now, doesn’t that sound awful familiar in the case of Billy F. or Sally G.,” to which they reply, “of course it does and look at them now, they sure are donkeys now, alright.”
To which I reply, such it is, because the earth and nature don’t give a damn if you live or die.
That is what personal responsibility is all about, which point I think you made quite well with the Tar Baby.
Getting back to Pinochio and Jimmy Lampwick, the two are transported to the Land of Toys by the Coachman, and spend their days indulging in play and idleness, just like God alone knows how many young people in America today do, after five months, both of them awake with donkey ears, which they conceal with tall caps.
The two are reluctant to admit their condition to each other, but after some coaxing, they simultaneously remove their caps and laugh at each other.
Their laughter soon turns to animal brayings and the two transform into a pair of donkeys.
While Pinocchio is sold to a circus ringleader, Candlewick is sold to a farmer who makes him work at a water mill.
In a later chapter, Pinocchio is sold to a drummer who attempts to drown the donkey in order to skin his hide and use it to make his drum.
The man is then surprised that instead of finding a dead donkey, he sees Pinocchio who says the fish ate away at all his donkey skin.
Pinocchio recognizes the farmer’s donkey as his friend Candlewick.
Pinocchio and Candlewick meet again in chapter XXXVI, where it is revealed that Candlewick is dying from exhaustion.
Pinocchio, now returned to normal, temporarily takes on Candlewick’s job of doing farm work, and is laughed at when he reveals to Candlewick’s owner that he went to school with the animal.
Candlewick dies from exhaustion not long after.
end quotes
Now, dude, not to take anything away from you, but I think that is a more powerful moral story of what happens to young people foolish enough to fall for PROGRESSIVE dreams of an up-coming UTOPIA as soon as the PROGRESSIVES have seized sufficient political power here in the USA, which they did on December 14, 2020 when Joe Biden declared himself the PRESIDENT, even though he really wasn’t, and ordered Trump, who was the real president until 12 NOON on 20 January 2021, to concede power to Joe, as if on 14 December 2021, Joe Biden had some kind of authority to order a sitting American president around like a servant or slave.
And anyway, that is all history now.
As the saying goes, a die has been cast.
As the Chinese say, may we always live in interesting times, and from what I see brewing, they are going to be.
Those Canadian Baptist are are still up to their games…
SNEAD GETS 35 YEARS IN ROYAL FARMS MURDER
A young Painter man was sentenced Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court to 35 years in prison for murdering David “Stone” Anthony McCain by shooting him in the face while he sat in a car in the parking lot of the Onley Royal Farms in June of 2021.
Twenty-one-year-old Xzaviyor Snead, of Quail Lane, was convicted of the crimes by a jury last November. He continues to maintain his innocence and plans to appeal the conviction. Defense lawyer Carl Bundick said his client had an otherwise clean record and disputed the testimony of two witnesses who said they saw him shoot McCain.
However, in addition to the testimony, there was a video of the incident, and gunpower residue was found on Snead’s hands.
Violent crime again and again and again….Those pesky canadians are really busy.
GREENBUSH MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN TAYVION LAQUAN “TAY MAN” SMITH MURDER CASE
A Greenbush man pleaded guilty Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court to the December 2019 murder of 19-year-old Tayvion Laquan “Tay Man” Smith, who was shot when gunfire blasted his girlfriend’s Jacob Street apartment in Onancock.
WTF IS A TAY_MAN?
Well, it has to be something if it’s in the newspaper, because if it wasn’t something, then they’re not supposed to print it in the newspaper.
All this from on comments about chicken poop?????????
ain’t that some sh!t?