Archive for the ‘Michigan’ Category
2008 Equal Parenting Bike Trek – 758 Miles – Lansing Michigan to Washington, D.C.
Five Michigan fathers will pedal their bicycles 758 miles from Lansing, MI to Washington, D.C.
- Robb MacKenzie – Upper Penninsula of Michigan – US EPBT Founder – 2007 cyclist
- Robert Pedersen – West Michigan – 2007 Runner-Up Winner in Best Life Magazine’s National Hero Dad Contest, Co-Founder of A Child’s Right – 2007 cyclist
- Brian Downs, Esq. – Grand Rapids MI – Running for Judge in Kent County MI in 2008
- Derek Bailey, MSW – Traverse City MI – American Indian. Founder of Dance4Equality
- Mike Saxton – Lansing MI – Dads of Michigan
Robert Pedersen, who keeps Murdoc in the loop about this effort, points out The Price Some Reservists Have To Pay by Phyllis Schlafly.
Most of the reservists called up to serve in the Iraq war have paid a big price: a significant reduction of their wages as they transferred from civilian to military jobs, separation from their loved ones, and of course the risk of battle wounds or death. Regrettably, on their return home, those who are divorced fathers could face another grievous penalty: loss of their children, financial ruin, prosecution as “deadbeat dads,” and even jail.
Reservists’ child-support orders were based on their civilian wages, and when they are called up to active duty, that burden doesn’t decrease.
Faith in the Foxhole: How a soldier embraced his faith amidst the chaos of war
This is the cover story in this month’s Faith Grand Rapids magazine. Though Ed Czyzyk was a Marine and not a soldier, it’s a great look at a local guy who served in World War 2:
More than six decades later, Ed’s memories of the September 1944 landing on Peleliu remain vivid, as does the Catholic faith that helped him through it. The World War II veteran still uses the well-worn Catholic Prayer Book that he believes protected him as much as the 100 pounds of gear and ammunition that he carried throughout the jungles of the South Pacific. The adage that “there are no atheists in a foxhole” holds true, Ed believes. Looking back on those fearful moments before he and others in the First Marine Division jumped from their landing craft into a hail of mortar shells: “You can’t tell me that everybody didn’t pray. That saw me through the war,” he says matter-of-factly.
He served in a communications unit and had previouisly landed on New Britain. He would also invade Okinawa on Easter Sunday, 1945. One of his brothers, also a Marine, happened to be on the landing craft next to his and they met briefly on beach. For Ed, Okinawa was far less intense than Peleliu had been.
One of his saddest memories of Okinawa was watching Japanese kamikazes dive into U.S. ships in the harbor. “Every day at sundown you’d see these Japanese kamikazes… they came in droves,” recalled Ed. “It hurt to see those Japanese dive into those ships. You know that it had to kill a bunch of sailors and Marines aboard ship. It just hurt.”
Also of interest in this issue of the magazine is A child of war, a short article about a local Grand Rapids woman who was just five years old when the US entered the war.
She attended nearby St. James School and during the many daily walks between her home and school, she, along with others, would look for materials to recycle for the war effort.
“We didn’t waste any of that time (going back and forth from school), as it was part of our mission to look for discarded packages of cigarettes along the way. If we were lucky, the crumpled pack would still hold the inner lining of tin foil. This was not easy, as it meant weaving your way from curb to sidewalk and back again, adding more miles to your journey, but the prize made it worthwhile,” she said Carefully lifting the tin foil out, Ellen would return home and add it to the ever growing ball she was collecting. When that ball was big enough, she would proudly turn it in for scrap metal needed for the war effort.
Ex-lawmaker charged in terror conspiracy
A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.
Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.
Siljander served in Congress from 1981 to 1987. He was elected by special election to replace David Stockman, who resigned to take the position of Director of the OMB under President Reagan. He served the state’s 4th Congressional District, which is a large one in the center of the state north of the most densely populated areas and included Mt. Pleasant. (Traverse City is also in today’s 4th District, but was not when Siljander served.)
If convincted, he should get the full treatment.
Murdoc stopped and voted in the Republican primary on the way home from work. The snow wasn’t too bad and the roads were perfectly fine. (Special note to whoever moved the polling place to its new location: Thanks. I don’t have to go out of my way any more and the parking lot is not bottlenecked on a busy street like the old one.)
I was voter #826 in my precinct, which doesn’t seem very high at all. Predictions had been that about 20% of registered voters would participate, but I’d guess that it’s less than that in my area. Only a few people at work voted that I know of.
There were only two people in line in front of me, and they both had their driver’s licenses out and ready to comply with Michigan’s new Voter ID law. I had mine out as well, but I put it away before I got to the front, wanting to make sure the poll worker would ask me for it. She did and she checked it. She had also appeared to carefully check the ID of the woman in front of me, so I felt satisfied that, in my precinct at least, they were sticking with it.
I voted (for neither McCain nor Romney, incidentally) and headed out, disappointed that there wasn’t anyone waiting to poll me as I exited. I had really been hoping to tell them that I voted for Ron Paul (which I didn’t) and give the Paul loonies more ammunition when their guy came in so far back after things looked SO GOOD.
UPDATE: Instapundit points out a Hot Air post that says McCain has left the state and that exit poll numbers show Romney leading 35-29.
I personally expected McCain to win a squeaker. The Romney-leads-the-exit-polls speculation points to a McCain victory, doesn’t it? I mean, at what point do we begin to suspect election fraud when the exit polls correctly predict the winner?
Jay Tea on the big flap that Paul supporters have been making about the stolen primary in New Hampshire:
One woman made a mistake, and omitted 31 votes out of 920 total votes. She omitted 31 votes out of the over 18,000 votes your hero won. And the instant she found out about it, she fixed it.
She made a very understandable error, and you’re going absolutely apeshit bonkers over it. You’re making her life a living hell, forcing her to change her phone number and live in fear for her life. (No exaggeration; at least one person said she ought to be shot.)
Michigan’s primary is today. I fully expect that we will be treated to another round of “they’re conspiring to undermine Ron Paul” idiocy. For the record, if I’m exit polled I’m going to tell them I voted for Paul just to push his exit poll numbers a tick higher and give the Paullies more “proof” that their guy is getting shafted.
Here’s an event happing in Grand Rapids, MI, on Friday: The National Fatherhood Summit
This is the first event leading up to the 2nd Annual Family Preservation Festival which is to take place on August 15th-17th 2008 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Fatherhood Summit will bring together husbands, wives, mothers, fathers and grandparents in an effort to begin the New Year recognizing the need for repair of fatherhood nationwide.
The event is getting a lot of media coverage. Just go to DaddyBlogger and scroll.
I also got an email from Robert Peterson, one of the speakers at the Summit and one of the bikers who trekked to DC in support of equal parenting and who is going to do it again (???) this year. He tells me that a lot of military dads are going to be at the Fatherhood Summit.
I didn’t know this loser lives in Michigan. How embarrassing.
Ace of Spades:
Chuck Adkins. A sort of ironic name, given the fact that I think it’s plain to see the man enjoys his donuts.
A co-blogger at Cold Fury posted a fairly innocuous, though critical, post about Fatboy NotSlim up there.
So how did Lovehandles McGee respond?
This might explain why this Christina Hendrix bitch is dead, If I had to hang around idiots like that, I’d fucking die too.
Yeah, I said that, I meant ever fucking word of it.
Here’s the background: Christina Hendrix is Mike from Cold Fury’s recently deceased wife. She died in a motorcycle accident about half a year ago.
You stay classy, Wranglers Husky.
I remember this clown from when he was posting info about Michelle Malkin some time back. Figures that he’s from the Detroit area. Everyone jokes about him living in his mom’s basement, and I believe it’s true because he supposedly got in trouble with her after the Detroit PD paid a few visits after he made some threats online. But it’s such a total caricature of a total loser that it almost defies reality.
What makes him double-dog classy is his web site, which is currently down. I’m totally sure that it has nothing to do with his most recent diarrhea of the mouth. Here’s his current explanation:
What the hell happened to this Website??!?!?!
I’m sure that’s what many people want to know.
Well, let me explain.
What started all this was, I downloaded a Plugin, for WordPress. Which is what I run, normally for a Blog. and it was broke, I attempted to force it to work, by tinkering with the permissions in cPanel, trying to force the Plug in to work… Somehow are another, and for some odd reason, Something got like seriously messed up. I got the White screen of death. Horrors!
Anyhow, It was broke and everything I tried to do, didn’t fix it.
Crap.
By ChuckAdkins at 12/13/2007 – 00:24 | ChuckAdkins’s blog | Read more
Sure, Chucky. Technical difficulties. Please stand by.
My nine-year-old daughter could see that you’re completely full of it and then some. Well, she’s almost ten, but still.
Last night I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Diet Eman, a member of the Dutch Resistance during World War 2. She currently lives in Grand Rapids and spoke to a packed room at the Homeschool Building in (the city of) Wyoming.
It was quite something to hear about her experiences and exploits following the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. She helped hide Dutch Jews, she aided downed Allied pilots, she helped steal ID papers and ration cards for those in hiding, and she basically lived on the run until captured and imprisoned in 1944. Her fiance was killed. Canadian troops finally liberated the area in 1945.
She credits her Christian faith and God’s will for her success and survival. I believe that the things she did and the close calls she managed to escape were not mere coincidence or good fortune.
She refused an honorarium for speaking because of her strong support for homeschooling.
I bought a copy of her book Things We Couldn’t Say and it looks good. It was published by Eerdmans in Grand Rapids. Mrs. Eman was signing books, and I had her make it out to my wife who has read a number of WW2-era stories to our kids, including at least one on the Dutch Resistance. I’ll probably have some excerpts and additional comments once I get a chance to read it.
To hear her stories from her mouth in person was quite an experience. She told us that any of us would do the same thing in the same position, and I would like to believe it. But to hear her speak of what she did, I wonder.
Pickpocket whupped by Marine pleads guilty
Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Jesse Daniel Rae, who was beaten up by a older Marine while he was trying to rob him, plead guilty to assault with intent to rob Wednesday.
Rae tried to rob Bill Barnes, 72, at a convenience store in Alpine Township in early summer. Barnes quickly got the upper hand on Rae, 27, and the incident was caught on surveillance cameras.
Rae will be sentenced January 28 and faces up to 15 years in prison.
Coverage from this summer:
Bill Barnes says he was scratching off a losing $2 lottery ticket inside a gas station when he felt a hand slip into his front-left pants pocket, where he had $300 in cash.
He immediately grabbed the person’s wrist with his left hand and started throwing punches with his right, landing six or seven blows before a store manager intervened.
The Edmund Fitzgerald sank with all hands on the night of November 10th, 1975.
For more Edmund Fitzgerald videos, see last year’s post in MichiBlogger.
