Judged by the content of their character

The dictionary defines a hero as "a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life." A personal hero is someone we hold in especially high esteem. For me, Dr. King is both a national and personal hero. I have no illusions that he was a flawless man. I simply have the conviction that his virtues far outweighed his faults and that this nation is a better place because of him. When I read his speeches and weigh them in the context of his time – considering his ability and courage to pursue his aggressive but nonviolent humanitarian principles despite enormous pressures from those who thought he was going too far and those who thought he wasn’t going far enough – I conclude that he was an extraordinary inspirational leader with uncommon vision and strength. Dr. King didn’t simply talk about his dreams. He went to the battle lines time and time again to fight for them. Before he was finally murdered at the age of 39, his home had been bombed. He knew he was continuously putting his life at risk to advocate social justice, human dignity, and an end to racism and bigotry. We have not yet fully reached Dr. King’s promised land where all people will be judged by the content of their character, but we’re certainly closer to it because of him.

Quotations From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

2. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

3. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

4. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

5. I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

6. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. No social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle – the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

7. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

8. We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from the means because the means represent the end in process, and ultimately you cannot reach good ends through evil means because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

9. An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

10. An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

11. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

12. If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values: that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

13. Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

14. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

15. That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

16. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”

17. The first question that the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But...the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

18. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

19. If physical death is the price I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

20. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now because I’ve been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, and . . . I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not fearing any man. (Spoken shortly before his death.)

The coddled "terrorists" of South Florida

Anti-Castro Cuban exiles who have been linked to bombings and assassinations are living free in Miami. Does the U.S. government have a double standard when it comes to terror?

Plans to attack Cuba are constantly being hatched in South Florida. Over the years militant exiles have been linked to everything from downing airliners to hit-and-run commando raids on the Cuban coast to hotel bombings in Havana. They've killed Cuban diplomats and made numerous attempts on Castro's life.

But, other than an occasional federal gun charge, nothing much seems to happen to most of these would-be revolutionaries. They are allowed to train nearly unimpeded despite making explicit plans to violate the 70-year-old U.S. Neutrality Act and overthrow a sovereign country's government. Though separate anti-terror laws passed in 1994 and 1996 would seem to apply directly to their activities, no one has ever been charged for anti-Cuban terrorism under those laws. And 9/11 seems to have changed nothing. In the past few years in South Florida, a newly created local terrorism task force has investigated Jose Padilla and the hapless Seas of David cult, and juries have delivered mixed reviews, but no terrorism charges have been brought against anti-Castro militants. The federal government has even failed to extradite to other countries militants who are credibly accused of acts of murder. Among the most notorious is Luis Posada Carriles, wanted for bombing a Cuban jet in 1976 and Havana hotels in 1997. It is, perhaps, a testament to the power of South Florida's crucial Cuban-American voting bloc -- and the political allegiances of the current president.

In Greater Miami, home to the majority of the nation's 1.5 million Cuban-Americans, the presence of what could credibly be described as a terrorist training camp has become an accepted norm during the half-century of the anti-Castro Cuban diaspora. Alpha 66 and numerous other paramilitary groups -- Comandos F4, Brigade 2506, Accion Cubana -- are so common they've taken on the benign patina of Rotary Clubs with weapons.

Adult Ethics Programs Can They Do Any Good?

Lots of companies are focusing serious attention on the issues of ethics and values -- and lots of people think it’s a waste of time.

The skeptics argue that you can’t teach ethics to adults. By the time they’re in the workplace, they’re either ethical or not.

It’s a plausible argument, but it misses the point.

The purpose of a corporate ethics program is not to make people ethical but to increase the likelihood that they’ll act ethically. This is definitely achievable. In today’s environment, failing to do what can be done to protect a company from employee misconduct is irresponsible.

The objective of a corporate ethics program is to establish a business culture in which it’s easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing and where concerned coworkers and vigilant supervisors repress illegal or improper conduct that can potentially endanger or embarrass the company.

An organization can further improve its ethical track record by assuring it has clear and credible statements of values and standards of conduct. When supplemented with quality training, those values and standards can clarify expectations and reduce misconduct resulting from ignorance or misinterpretations of laws or company policies.

A firm that wants to strengthen its ethical culture hires for character and trains for skills. It takes background checks seriously, screening out employees who lack the moral compass or strength to resist temptations and weeding out those who lack moral commitment or judgment during probation. And during performance reviews and promotions, it assesses ethical attributes like trustworthiness, responsibility, and respectfulness. Only people who are comfortable living up to high ethical standards are retained or promoted.

Time.

Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86,400, carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well, everyone has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against "tomorrow." You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today... To realize the value of ONE YEAR ask a student who has failed his exam. To realize the value of ONE MONTH ask a mother who has given birth to a pre-mature baby. To realize the value of ONE WEEK ask an editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of ONE DAY ask a daily wage laborer who has ten kids to feed. To realize the value of ONE HOUR ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of ONE MINUTE ask a person who has missed a train. To realize the value of ONE SECOND as a person who has survived an accident. To realize the value of ONE MILLI-SECOND ask a person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics. Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special... special enough to have your time... and remember time waits for no one.

Commitment; Risk and Reward

Commitment means to "Bind Together for Strength".

COMMITMENT....
is what transforms a promise into reality.
It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions
and the actions which speak louder than the words.
It is making the time when there is none.
Coming through time after time after time.
Year after year after year.

Commitment is the stuff character is made of;
the power to change the face of things.

FROM INVOLVEMENT TO COMMITMENT:
THE RISK AND THE REWARD

THE RISK
Committing to take risks to help build your team will also enhance your personal growth. But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing. People who risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing, are nothing, become nothing. They may, for a while, avoid suffering and sorrow - maybe- but they simply cannot learn and feel and change, in order to grow and get all there is to be gotten from a sport or any phase of life.

THE REWARD
Personal Satisfaction
The reward is to become part of a dynamic, continuously improving team where you, as a player, are accepted, challenged, recognized, respected, and appreciated. You belong to a team where you are the difference. It is the glue that allows new seniors to take on important leadership roles and all others to ask, "What can I do for this team?"

- COMMITMENT -
- Will cost you.

- Counts the most in the toughest of times.

- You will know -- if you're really committed -- on decisions you make while all alone.
- The rewards for total commitment do not come instantaneously, but the rewards come after a lot of sacrifice, effort, disappoint, and heartache. However, the real rewards for total commitment will last a lifetime.

-- "Earning the Right to WIN" --

Personal Anecdotes: Commitment To Your Team.

Hold the Rope!

Every year a professional football team wins the championship. Every year a college football team wins the NCAA title. Every year the best high school team in Division A on down wins the state crown. All these teams have one thing in common. No matter how tough it became throughout their season, they did one thing -- they held the rope!

What is "holding the rope?" Imagine that you are hanging from the edge of a cliff with a drop of twenty thousand feet. The only thing between you and an fall to your death is a rope, with the person of your choice on the other end. Who do you know that has the guts to pull you to safety? Who will hold the rope? Who do you know that is going to let that rope burn their hand and not let go? How many people that you know are going to withstand the burning pain and watch the blood drip from their hands for you?

If you can name two people, that's not good enough, because those two people might not be around. The next time your team is together, look around and ask yourself, "Who could I trust to hold the rope? Who is going to let their hands bleed for me?" When you can look at every member on your team and say to yourself that they all would hold the rope, you are destined to win a lot of ball games. You see, the team that holds the rope when the going gets tough are winners. When you are down by four points with thirty seconds to go, don't give up. Yell at your teammates to "hold the rope -- let it burn but don't let go!"

Every year there are winners and losers in all sports. Every year the winners hold the rope. You don't have to have the best team on the field to win the game. If you play with poise and do what your coaches ask of you, and most of all -- hold the rope -- you will be successful.

No matter what sport you play, in order to win, you have to have a commitment to your team. If you are supposed to run three times per week, do it. If you have to lift weights three times per week, don't miss. Once you start letting up at practice or start missing your workouts, you've killed the team because you didn't hold the rope! Don't let your team down! You've got to hold the rope!

Personal Anecdotes of Choosing

As the presidential campaign heats up, lots of people I talk to express dismay that none of the current candidates meet all of their hopes and expectations. Often the discussion turns to what they don’t like about one person or another. This has been true in every national election I’ve seen, but I don’t remember a time when dissatisfaction with the choices was higher and the temptation to stand on the sidelines was stronger.

Well, that’s not a viable option. In a democracy, the highest public office is a citizen with the right to vote. Our privileges come with civic responsibilities, including the moral duty to participate.

But how can we sort through the rhetoric, rumors, and allegations to make a wise and responsible choice?

First, we have to become informed.

Claims that “I really don’t know much about candidate X” are not acceptable. We can’t hide behind a veil of ignorance, especially in the era of the Internet where it’s so easy to learn all we need to know. Surely, we should put as much effort into choosing our next president as we would in choosing our next car.

The harder challenge is weighing and balancing the factors we think are important and making a comparative judgment among the contenders.

It helps me to be systematic and assess each candidate’s strengths and deficiencies in three areas:

• Convictions. What is his or her ideology and beliefs about issues of consequence?
• Competence. What is his or her ability to effectively implement stated strategies and to deal with the crisis potential of unanticipated events, from natural disasters to foreign assassinations?
• Character. Can this person be trusted to represent the country with honor, integrity, courage, and dignity?

My Boys Did WELL!

Tonight we beat a team that has dominated us for that last few years. Damn, it felt GOOD!
Us - 69 Them - 24

It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one.

What you've got to have is faith and discipline when you're not yet a winner.

I got the C.O.W.

Thank You! BagWine Ruminations for the Award.

Matt-Man, hope you don't mind me making this Icon.

Ridiculous!

Lawyer: Ripping MP3s Illegal, Grounds for Lawsuit

You, too, could be sued for thousands of dollars by the major record companies — even if you've never once illegally downloaded music.

That's because at least one lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America, the Big Four record companies' lobbying arm and primary legal weapon, considers the copying of songs from your own CDs to your own computer, for your own personal use, to be just as illegal as posting them online for all to share, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Arizona.

Come on ! am I the only working stiff that has had enough of this? Now I can't copy my own CD's for MY OWN use? I realize that Roberts 53 , is the youngest member of the Supreme Court and probably has never enjoyed his tunes on a i pod while sipping VSOP.

Does this mean that those of us from the “old” days who copied from vinyl to tape or tape to tape are guilty also? Why in the world did the old cassette machines have a high speed dub for quick re-recording? Apple itself estimated earlier this year that only 4 percent of music on iPods worldwide had been purchased through iTunes, implying that most of the rest had been ripped from CDs.

What if I physically hand one of my CDs to a friend, and he ends up ripping some of the tunes for his iPod? Am I liable for that? What if all he does is listen to it once or twice and gives it back? Technically, that’s sharing. What if I loan him a book, and he reads it? Is that “stealing” from the author and publisher? What if I go to Barnes & Noble, read what I want from a book while there and end up not buying it? Isn’t that “theft”? Maybe publishers should begin suing libraries. When I borrow a library book and read it, I end up not buying the book.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Monty Python always had a way to put things in check!

I was looking at some of the new 2008 laws for California, Wow!
Our New motto should be -

Civil Liberties?

I wasn't using them anyway.

Breaking in the new Pit

I love B.B.Q. but only if it is done right. My first restaurant was a small 22 seat smoke house. Fric & Frac's Rib Shack, I loved that place! A college friend(Dave aka-Fric) and myself(AL aka -Frac) needed a job to help fund college. Both of us were raised in the food industry and thought, what the hell.
The good news, it made bank. Bad news, we were up till 3A.M. most nights keeping up with the demands of smoking the meats. After about two years, Dave couldn't handle restaurant demands and college, he needed to bail. So I found myself at the fork in the road and decided to devote my studies to cooking. Where better but Cajun Country, the French Quarter?
I did re-open in a new location and new partner, my Mom. The new place was much bigger 98 seats with a 50 seat banquet room. We now served Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Catering. The place was packed from day one, pretty much stayed that way till I closed it 7 years later but that's another story!

(Yeah, I now that was a major run-on sentence)

The wife and my new X-Mas PIT, she rocks! The wife ain't bad either!

Beef and Pork ribs, ready for the Barbie.

The Pit working it's magic.
I need to fabricate better air vents, had a hell of time keeping the temperature right.

Baby it's cold outside!
Why not enjoy while you cook?

The finished product!
They came out nice and I'm still picking meat out of my teeth.

BLING for Pop Warner players?

Picture the moment if you will. Executives at Pop Warner, the nation’s largest youth football and cheerleading organization, are sitting around their polished conference room table one day discussing new ideas to broaden their appeal, attract new sponsors, and make more money.

"I have an idea," someone says. "What if we had an Official Jewelry Provider?"

"But we’re an organization for youngsters," the head man responds. "Kids don’t wear jewelry."

"All the more reason. What child wouldn’t want a … Pop Warner championship ring?"

Ka-ching.

I'm not saying that’s how it went down, but last month, Pop Warner partnered with Jostens, manufacturer of 27 of the last 41 NFL Super Bowl rings, to produce customized rings to help its 5- to 15-year-old competitors "remember their experiences for a lifetime."

No word on how much the rings will cost, but I'm pretty sure that: 1) every kid will want one, 2) every parent will give them one, 3) every kid will lose or outgrow it, and 5) Pop Warner and Jostens will reap a windfall.

From my Co-Workers blog

My Co-Worker posted this on his blog and I think it is great. Take a look..
http://dogmatist.blogspot.com/2007/12/holiday-beer.html