“Combating Hate in Europe” Forum

Combating Hate in Europe photo From left to right: Fred Hiatt, Washington Post moderator, Peter Wettig, German Ambassador, Gerard Araud, French Ambassador, David O’Sullivan, EU Ambassador to the U.S.
(Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016)

Despite the snowy conditions in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum held a program on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2016 on the topic of “Combating Hate in Europe.” http://www.ushmm.org/online/watch/index.html
In advertising the forum, the museum explained the importance of such a program.
“Around the world, antisemitism, religious persecution, and violent extremism are on the rise, and each threatens the stability and freedoms that democratic leaders are working to preserve.” Continue reading

National Biometric ID Cards in Africa

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is expressing today its support for the meeting in Niamey, Niger, January 25-26, 2016, of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission Heads of Immigration on “irregular immigration and roll-out of the National Biometric ID Cards.” http://www.iom.int/news/iom-supports-ecowas-meeting-national-biometric-id-cards-task-force-irregular-migration-0 Continue reading

“Building the Machine” Shines Light on Common Core

“Common Core will be raising good little socialists, who are in tune with their feelings, not so much their critical thinking skills.” – Author unknown
“Common sense of the common people is more important for the health of the nation than the ideas of the philosophical elites.” – Wayne Brasler

Pinocchio Wikipedia Photo: Wikipedia
The best documentary on the National Common Core Standards, Building the Machine, was directed by Ian A. Reid, who set out to illuminate the sixty-two percent of Americans who had not heard of Common Core in 2013. www.CommonCoreMovie.com Continue reading

Life in a Virginia Nursing Home

Old Woman Dozing by Nicolaes Maes (1656) Old Woman Dozing (1656)
By Nicolaes Maes Photo: Wikipedia
I never know what to expect on my weekly visits to the nursing home. The lobby has an occasional patient wheeling herself or pushed by a family member for a stroll around the property. There is a small park in the back with winding paths cracked here and there by the growing roots. Majestic trees surround the grounds. Continue reading

The Chronically Homeless in America

Photo Wikimedia Commons Photo: Wikipedia Commons
The mark of a civilized society is how well the most helpless are treated –animals, children, the elderly, and those who are homeless. There is always room for improvement. We are plenty generous with people from other countries, but we miss the mark when it comes to helping our own chronic homeless, the veterans, babies in the womb, the elderly, and others who cannot protect themselves. Continue reading

Non-Governmental Organizations’ Role in Global Governance

“The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.” – Will and Ariel Durant in Lesson of History
Rope
Photo: Wikipedia
The developed world appears to be changing in the same direction, at the same time, at an alarming speed, relatively speaking. What is the common dominator and drive behind this change towards a one world global governance and global citizenship? What is rushing everything towards global socialism? How is this possible when countries have different levels of development, education, economies, government, history, religion, wars, and conflicts? Continue reading

“I’ve lived in Your Future and It Did Not Work”

Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky, a Russian writer born in 1942 but educated at Cambridge, was a dissident in the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 1970s. Because he exposed the Soviet practice of jailing political prisoners in psychiatric institutions, the young Russian was sentenced to twelve years (1964-1976) in prison, labor camps, and psychiatric wards under the brutal Soviet regime that did not allow any dissenting opinions. He was released to the West in 1976. Continue reading

The Climate Change Industry and the Religion of Green

We are so lucky that Al Gore’s “true planetary emergency” did not take place. He predicted it ten years ago at the Sundance Film Festival where his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” premiered. It was the result of an environmental crusade he embarked upon that would make him a billionaire, a Nobel Prize and a Golden Globe winner – “Educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.” http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2006-al-gore-does-sundance Continue reading