Truthful Politics

Bystander Thwarts Carjacking by Using a Frozen Turkey as a Weapon

At a Harris Teeter in Fuquay-Varina, N.C. Fred Ervin was spotted beating Irene Bailey as he tried to steal her vehicle. Bystanders at the Harris Teeter began intervening and an unidentified male hit Ervin in the head with a frozen turkey.

As Fred Ervin tried to leave the Harris Teeter lot he ran into 5 other vehicles that were parked near the Bailey's Nissan.

Ervin did manage to leave the Harris Teeter parking lot and get onto 401 before the police stopped and arrested him. During a 911 call you can hear a women telling the dispatcher that "there is a woman hurt, he is crashing cars, he can't get out."

According to WRAL news "the police intend to charge Fred Ervin with assualt with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, assualt with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, robbery, driving with a revoked license, hit-and-run and larceny." This was a cumulation of robberies and hijackings that Ervin was involved in over the weekend of November 22, 2008. He also hijacked another vehicle owned by Mr. Quijada and robbed the McDonald's at a BP gas station across the street from Harris Teeter.

We do not know if Ervin has been released from the hospital where he was checked for a head injury.

 

Cathy von Hassel-Davies

I am working on an article regarding the Economic "Bailout" in regards to banking and the auto industry. I would like your opinions to use in the upcoming article. I want thought provoking ideas and comments include any links to back up what you are saying.

Submit your opinions to Cathy@truthfulpolitics.us

WARNING!!! any comments containing slurs, or just plain obnoxious will be deleted without further consideration. I am asking for serious opinions.

Cathy

6 tornadoes touched down in North Carolina over the weekend. Godwin in Cumberland County was hit with an EF-0 while Sampson County's Spivey Corners had an EF-1. Meanwhile Johnston County had two tornadoes strike, an EF-0 in Pine Level and an EF-2 struck Kenley with wind speeds up to 130 miles an hour. Minutes later Wilson County saw a tornoda hit in Elm City with an EF-3 and winds up to 140 miles an hour.

Unfortunately Kenley and Elm City each lost one of their own during these storms. Maryland Gomez, 51, and Joshua Wiggins, 11, respectively, died in their homes. Joshua Wiggins' funeral will be held on Saturday in Wilson at the New Beginnings Community Church at 1PM; meanwhile, Maryland will be cremated with a service date to be determined but will probably be held
in Goldsboro at St. Mary's Catholic Church.

Sixty homes were either damaged or destroyed with about 120 people displaced by the destructive weather. The Red Cross reported that they only had to find hotels for about 10 people, the remaining homeless were with family and friends.

Motrin has stepped up to the plate - they listened to all the voices and removed the "babywearing" advertisement from their website. They issued a public apology and explained it was to late to pull the advertising from print but it will be stopped. 

I hope this has made more news than on my site, Twitter and a few blogs, as I feel this is a very important wake-up call for other companies. They need to have someone on their staff that represents the focus groups they are advertising to. Why Motrin did not discover that this ad would be insulting to many woman, let alone Mothers and Grandmothers, is beyond me. The reserach just wasn't behind that campaign and that is unfortunate or was it fortunate?

Will this now lead other companies to pay more attention to the groups they are focusing their ads on? Let us hope so.

-Cathy von Hassel-Davies

11/17/08 UPDATE- Motrin has pulled the ad from their site. Unfortunately it was to late to pull the print advertisements that already went out.

UPDATED-A widget has been added to the right so you can see how fast this news is spreading.

A site on the Internet published by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc., has a Motrin ad that is causing much furor among the internet Moms and Grandmas.

Here are the key words that seem to be irritations in the ad: SEEMS TO BE in fashion, I mean IN THEORY it is a great idea, who knows what else they've come up with, SUPPOSEDLY a real bonding experience, what about me? do Mom's who carry their babies CRY MORE than Mom's who don't, I SURE DO, THESE THINGS PUT A TON OF STRAIN ON YOUR BACK, NECK..., PLUS IT TOTALLY MAKES ME LOOK LIKE AN OFFICIAL MOM. She then goes on to say good things about the pain and concludes with 'if I look tired and crazy people will understand why.'

I see a lot wrong with this ad, but the main thing is that I can see some women not "babywearing" because the ad claims it would cause them pain, so much pain that they will be crying and will need pills to ease their excrutiating pain. Even though the tone of her voice is not negative I received a lot of negativity from the words that were put on the screen added by her repeating them. Even the ending was not enough to soothe the bad taste I started getting from the very first sentence.

Here is the backlash just from Twitter, a video created by Katja Presnal on her blog Ladybug Landings. Katja said it would have been a longer video but YouTube only allows 10 minutes.

Oh by the way I also "wore my babies" in a carrier 28 years ago. Do I remember the pain or have any serious side effects? NO! Am I very close to my two wondeful boys now 29 and 24? YES!

Here is the ad put out by Motrin, let me know what you think in the comments.
-Cathy von Hassel Davies

I wanted to give my actual thoughts about Sarah Palin and why I feel the Republican party lost this year. Even though this site is a non-partisan site and we try our best to keep our views out of the postings, once in a while we have to show you that we are actual people and we are human.

I was born in 1960, raised in NY (LI for the most part) by Republican parents. When I was 15 my parents moved upstate near Woodstock NY. They still maintained their Republican roots and passed on their values to me and my three siblings; out of the four of us only one was a registered Democratic.

Even though most people considered me a hippy, I was more aligned with my "greaser" friends. Doo-Wop music was our music, as we listened to Frankie Avalon and the Four Seasons, Leslie Gore, Chubby Checkers, Fats Dominio, The Everly Brothers and The Drifters, to name a few. The Beatles and Stones were listened to but very rarely. It wasn't until the late 70's when Peter Frampton, Janis Joplin, the Stones and the Beatles made our lists. We hung out at bowling alley's and diners, went to football games and keggers on Saturday nights. Drugs did not come into our scene until the mid-70's and then it was mostly marijuana and my "greaser" friends were very against it. 

Growing up I believed the Republicans when they used their rhetoric to make me, my family and friends believe that the "others" were going to ruin our economy, raise our taxes, and demoralize our youth. The "hippies" were going to take over and the world was going to go to hell, as we will all be smoking pot, stoned out of our gourd and just laying around doing nothing. Yes, even though in the mid to late 70's I was beginning to embrace the 'hippie' culture of pot, music and love everyone, I still held on to the threads of my Republican upbringing.

My Mother also instilled in me a sense of feminism - even though I would consider my Mother a fringe feminist and not Gloria Steinem by a long shot. My parents never pushed me in my education, but they also never pushed me towards marriage and the life of a housewife. I never had aspirations of going to college but I did plan on marrying and having children. I worked off and on during my marriage and the early years of my boys growing up. I knew I was not going to be sub-servient to my man but I would stand "behind" him.

I then had this need to go to college, as a non-traditional student (I was 31) enrolled in State University of New York Delhi and received my liberal arts degree. While at SUNY the presidential election of 1992 in which George H. Bush ran against Bill Clinton started to be the main topic on campus. I took a class with Professor Nadar and one of our readings was a book by Robert Reich, and what he said started making sense to me. However; I was still wrapped up in listening to the political commercials of the Republicans and believing them. Bill Clinton will; increase our debt as his state Arkansas had doubled in debt, double government spending, raise taxes, and crime will increase, as Arkansas' had the biggest increase in crime rate. Clicking on the links will take you to some of the 1992 commercials. I liked some of the things that Bill Clinton stood for, yet those Republican commercials kept me in fear of learning more.

Then we got through the Clinton years - we survived - there was no major fallout from those years. The only thing that came about was trying to impeach him, Whitewater and what loomed the strongest was his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Boy did us Republicans jump on that, to the extent of it trickling down to Hillary Clinton. I did not give her a chance because I immediately went on the defensive; why in hell didn't she kick her husband out? why didn't she leave him? Then I grew up... No really, I realized through the love of my husband and my love for him that people can get through anything as long as the love is there. We did not have any cheating scenario in our household, but I started thinking, if it did happen what would I do. My love for him is so very strong that I could not give up on him that easily, so I now believe that is how Hillary looked at it. 

Then came the Bush years, by now I have earned my B.A. degree. I received it in 1996 and I believe this was the beginning of my eyes opening. At first slits, then a little further as my husband lost his hard earned pension from a company he worked with for 15 years, even wider yet when Katrina made landfall in 2005, interest rates started increasing, gas prices increased and our economy went into a downward spiral. Eyes now wide open.

My foray into politics and truthfulness all began when I started receiving emails about Target, Wal-Mart, and Microsoft, to name a few. I would go to Snopes and check on the information, or do a search to only discover a lot of the information coming through my email accounts were false; based on rumors. This led to the beginning of my research endeavors, as things came through I would research the information. Then I started receiving emails against Barack Obama and again I would go out and research the information. The more I researched, the more I discovered these emails were laden with falsity. The more I discovered, the more I realized how the Republicans focused on scare tactics and how they would use your fears to keep you listening to them and stay aligned to their thinking. I began to understand Michael Moore's movie Bowling for Columbine and
his premise of news and how the way of life in America is based on the fear
factor. The more I researched, the more I discovered, the more I realized.

I then started noticing how the Republicans were all about the negative and yet every time I heard Barack Obama give a talk he was about the positive and using talk to uplift us - showing us that the positive can definitely be a big part of our life. During this time I was still a die hard Republican and planning on voting for my man John McCain, however; I was beginning to lean Obama. I looked into his campaign, I started listening to what the Democrats had to say, I started agreeing with the views of the Obama campaign. Then it happened... John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, a woman, yet something deep inside said he picked her to sway over the Hillary Clinton voters. I watched the interaction between John McCain and Sarah Palin on the stage that day he announced his running mate, I noticed there was no spark, no connectiveness, but I said I will give them a chance, maybe it was due to not really knowing each other and once they started hitting the campaign trail that would change. It never did.

My brother (another die hard Republican) called me on the phone just after she was picked and asked me what I thought of Sarah Palin. I told him I couldn't answer him yet as I don't know a thing about her and would have to research her first before I formed an opinion. The other end got dead silent, I thought we got disconnected, but no, my brother was in stunned silence. I am sure he expected me to jump on the bandwagon wholeheartedly because she is a Republican and a woman. 

The more I discovered, the more I began to be insulted at John McCain's pick. I knew more about politics than she did; I feel strongly that the people running for President and Vice President need to know at least as much as I do, and I really prefer they know more. Then I started looking at what she stood for and it was against everything I did. I really felt she was a step backwards for women.

Then she started doing her interviews - and I was embarrassed to be affiliated with the party. Then came the strong negative campaigns, then came the lies, the harder I researched the more I discovered, the more I became embarrassed, the more I started volunteering for Obama. I then joined Republicans for Obama, then came my biggest move ever. I changed my political party. Yes that is right I became a Democrat, then I joined the Democratic Women Organization, but I stayed true to Obama and increased my volunteer efforts. The more Sarah Palin went out and spread the lies the more I volunteered. Now please don't get me wrong, I know Obama and Biden did stretch the truth at times and yes I did research what they had to say but the biggest offenders were the Republicans.

What truly amazed me was the more I volunteered the more I met other Republicans, like me, tired of the negative campaign, very insulted at McCain's pick, and extremely humiliated at having our intelligence insulted. As Obama volunteers we were told 'when you are talking to someone and if it turned into negative remarks about Obama, McCain or their issues turn it around to the positive, do not go the negative route.'

I then started to get word out to other Republicans about how Obama truly viewed things, how his issues were really this or that and not what McCain said Obama was going to do. When asked where I got my information I told them I researched it. I went out to Thomas.gov, I went out to the Illinois site, the Arizona site, our government sites, and other sites to gather the information I needed. I was not believed. I was told "uh huh sure, yup okay if that is what you say." Even my own Father on Election Night when I told him that we are actually informed voters and look up the issues and go out to the appropriate sites I heard, "Okay Cathy we have to end this conversation now! I can no longer talk to you at this moment." In other words he was extremely mad and did not believe me and could not believe that I actually thought/believed what I said. They would not listen, they would only spew things that they heard McCain's campaign say. Reminds of a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel song Sounds of Silence. If John McCain or the Republican party said it, it was true. It did not matter how much research you did - whatever you found was false.

It made me sad, it made me mad and it really started getting to me. I don't know if it was because I am female or because I was saying something alien to them. But how in the world could you go on spewing the lies without actually listening to the other side?

Every time I listened to McCain I truly wanted to hear about his issues, what was he going to do, yet all I heard was what Obama was going to do. If I wanted to know what Obama was going to do I would listen to Barack Obama not John McCain. I wanted to know what John McCain and Sarah Palin stood for and what they were going to do for us. I tried I really did. On the McCain side I would read the literature, and when they sent me a column view on the issues between McCain and Obama with only Yes and No answers and then I went to Obama's site and looked at a similar piece of literature and Obama's gave actual explanations, I felt as if I was being talked to not at. I felt I was treated as a smart person and not as someone who is to stupid to understand the talk so we will dumb it down for you. I was truly insulted by the Republicans. This was the same feeling I got when I emailed or talked to fellow Republicans.

That was when I knew, I knew no matter what I said or wrote I would just be treated as a stupid person who knew not of what she spoke or wrote. I knew I would never, ever get through to the Republican screaming at me, whose face was red with anger. I knew that as a woman saying these things it meant less then if another man would say it. I knew a new time was coming and I had to work hard to see it come about. I knew that no matter what John McCain did it would never be what was truly need. I knew no matter what Sarah Palin said or did she would never ever break the glass ceiling that so many women before her had cracked. As I am sure many other men and women also knew and that is why we now have Senator Barack Obama as our new President elect.

-Cathy von Hassel-Davies

As of this writing Sen. Obama has 306 vs. Sen. McCain's 146. What a hard long fought battle!!!!

The five polling locations:

North Newlin District - Eli Whitney Recreation Center 4110 E. Greensboro-Chapel Hill Rd

South Newlin District - Chatham Friends Meeting 4507 Greenhill Rd

North Thompson District - Swepsonville Fire Station 2700 Swepsonville Rd

South Thompson District - Salem United Methodist Church 4924 Salem Church Rd

Patterson District - Sylvan Elementary School 7718 Sylvan Rd

Voting is going smoothly and there have been no long lines since 7:00 this morning. I imagine it is due to people getting out and voting before work. Tonight I expect the craziness to begin.