This blog will appear periodically and just cover items quickly observed or read in local newspapers within a one hour limit. This set of items is from the Carroll County (Maryland) Times for Saturday, September 17, 2011.
01. Religion
(Apologia: Some of you may know my views on religion, and what I write about may or may not be what I personally believe; however, it is what I am very much interested in and concerned about.)
Lou Piel, fellow CLV resident and preacher published a column with the title: Express God's Love in More Tangible Ways. Lou says: "... ask God, through the spirit, to intervene in our lives... so we would accept the responsibility God has given us."
Lou quotes Francis of Assissi: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace."
He also quotes Jim Robinson: "...if we're free, that means we are responsible."
I like Lou's premise, that we shouldn't sit around waiting for things to happen to us.. we need to get off of our butts and help others..
I also like one phrase of Lou's that tells me a lot about him: "In the act of creation, no matter how you understand it. (evolution, creationism)..."
I think that I will send Lou an email.
2. Religion
The Vatican is trying to get a break-away traditional Catholic group to rejoin the church.. but first, they must accept some core church teachings of the current Roman Catholic faith. The ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X is opposed to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. That group was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969 and split with Rome over some issues, such as the church's relations with Jews and allowing the celebration of the Mass in languages other than Latin.
I believe that the Mass is now allowed to be celebrated in Latin.. I'll have to look further into the Jewish issue.. which may be related to a Bishop who denied the Holocaust.
3. Inventions and Such
President Obama signed a bill on Friday that overhauled the U.S. Patent system. The new law was set up to address the almost 700,000 patent application backlog. It now takes about three years to get a patent. (The article mentions that Thomas Edison only had to wait for seven weeks to get his photograph patent.. did they mean the phonograph?)
The act calls for the hiring of almost 2,000 examiners.
Wow! Republicans went along with this bill!
4. Religion again
In a letter to the editor, Wayne Butcher of Hampstead writes what may or may not be a tongue-in-cheek statements: "... a large number of Christians in this country believe the Bible to be historically accurate..." and: "Apart from the fact that the Bible definitely teaches that the Earth is little more than 6,000 years old, some simple observations reveal that the Earth is quite young..."
Wayne then gives some examples... as I read them, I do believe that Wayne is pulling our legs. He either is a reincarnated Voltaire, or a misguided Fundamentalist. (And "there is nothing wrong with that"... as Seinfeld would say.)
5. Even more Religion
Robert Wack, who I believe is, or was, a CLV Board Member, and a member of the Carroll County Common Council, writes about "...yet another back and forth about evolution versus creationism or intelligent design."
Bob believes that both sides of the argument are correct, because they are talking about two different things. His final paragraph bears repeating here:
"Science is about facts, evolution is science and the theory works, as well as our theories of gravity and electricity. Creationism is about feeling and faith, and it too works, but it is not science. Where science ends, faith begins, and it is on that frontier the two can coexist in harmony."
Good job, Bob. Let's hope Fundamentalists someday agree with you.
6. Elder Abuse
As the civilian coordinator of the TRIAD/SALT group in Carroll County, Maryland, I am very much interested in the apprehension and jailing of persons who abuse Senior Citizens. TRIAD is a group of three interested parties.. Police Organizations, AARP, and interested Senior Citizens. SALT is an acronym for Seniors and Law-enforcement Together. We meet regularly to address crimes against our elderly population.
The newspaper mentions a woman who has been charged with embezzling over $100,000 from an elderly woman with Alzheimers, for whom she had legal power. If true, this is an example of Elder Abuse. (Of course, being charged with a crime does not mean the person is convicted of a crime.)
According to a probable cause statement mentioned by the newspaper, "... made approximately 3,900 purchases out of the account of (the alleged victim) for ... own personal gain."
How much of this goes on is unknown. In TRIAD, we try to teach Police and Citizens how to spot and report instances of Elder Abuse. This is a big subject and we are getting ideas from Ombudsmen and other professionals. We are also planning to institute bank teller training, so they can be more alert to questionable withdrawals. We meet on the third Thursday of every month at the Westminster, Maryland Senior Activity Center.. at ten am. Everyone is welcome to attend.
7. Stink Bugs
Bryan Butler, regional fruit educator for the University of Maryland Extension Service in Carroll County writes that our area was spared a lot of stink bug damage because of the heavy rains and excess vegetation to distract them from produce. A second generation of the bugs did not appear. However, a lot of work is still being done on the problem.. as well as the on-going problems with gypsy moths and Japanese beetles.
Well, nobody told our stink bugs that they were not much of a problem. We had four Earthboxes with zucchini squash, yellow squash, cucumbers, and lots of tomato plants. Stink bugs destroyed the zucchini and yellow squash plants (after we got a few good sized squash though) and almost destroyed our cucumber plants. (We are still getting some stunted cucumbers.) After they did their damage there, they began to shove their probiscus points into our tomato fruit. I now have to pick the tomatoes while they are still green, before they are attractive to the bugs.. and hope that they ripen in the kitchen.
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OK.. the hour is up See you next time. Meanwhile, visit my website: http://joe-vaughan.com/.
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