No Birth Certificate for Allah

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been meaning to write about the Atlanta family battling state over right to name daughter Allah for a few days. I'm finally getting around to it.

It was a headline on the Drudge Report which first alerted me to the story of Elizabeth Handy and Bilal Walk, who would not be issued a birth certificate for their daughter. As it turns out, the details of the story are different from what I imagined they would be. I assumed from the headline that the Georgia Department of Public Health had refused to issue the infant a birth certificate with that name from some sort of "political correctness". We can't be insulting Muslims by giving girls the first name Allah, after all.

As it turns out, the Georgia Department of Public Health had an actual, legitimate reason for the refusal. Allah was not to be the child's first name, but rather her surname.

"State officials, however, said the child's name — ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah — does not fit the naming conventions set up by state law. They say that ZalyKha's last name should either be Handy, Walk or a combination of the two."

The State's explanation seemed logical to me, until I read that Handy and Walk have a three-year-old son who was given a birth certificate for his name, Masterful Allah, with no problem. But, even there, a simple explanation is likely. I'm sure that when the older son was issued his name, the particular Georgia Department of Public Health worker who OKed the name was probaly unaware of the state law regarding surname conventions. When the girl was to be named, the Georgia Department of Public Health worker in charge of issuing her birth certificate was more knowledgable of State regulations.

Handy and Walk have been dealing with the state on this issue for at least two years. General counsel Sidney Barrett wrote that, once the birth record is created, ZalyKha's surname can be changed through a petition to superior court; this obvious solution would be not unlike the solution found by Frank and Gale Zappa when the hospital in California would not register the name "Dweezil" on the birth certificate of their first son.

This whole story is not at all news worthy. Had the parents chosen another surname - like, Smith, for example - there wouldn't have been any reason for Drudge to link to the story in the first place. Not exactly fake news, but useless news.

Pecan Pies

One of the least desirable aspects of living in Philippines is the difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting the ingredients for the food dishes I grew up eating in the American South.

Not everything is a problem - fruits, like watermelon are available year 'round. You can't go out and buy a sausage and biscuit, but at least flour and Crisco are easy enough to get, so making biscuits at home solves that. Finding good fried chicken isn't difficult either. Jollibee, Chow King, and even McDonald's serve up really great fried chicken, and for the purist there are pretty respectable KFCs here.

Okra is widely available, but lots of luck finding yellow squash or a decent tomato.

The biggest problem, for me, is finding items needed for traditional Southern desserts. Making a banana pudding is......uh....a piece of cake - you can't find vanilla wafers, but there are cookies that can be used as a substitute. I've never seen a frozen, pre-made pie crust here. If you want a sweet potato pie, you have to learn to make your own crust. That's doable, I guess.

No, the biggest problem is finding the ingredients for pecan pie. OK, you can make your own crust, and finding Karo Syrup isn't as difficult as you might think. The real obstacle in having that pecan pie for Thanksgiving or Christmas is the absence of the one, absolutely necessary ingredient - pecans.

After living here for two years without seeing a pecan, I was in for a surprise when I stopped by a business in Dumaguete called Yan Yan Commercial. Yan Yan specializes in carrying everything one might need for baking. The regular items, such as flour, baking powder and sugar (refined, brown, or confectioners) are cheaper there than anywhere else in Dumaguete. The same goes for whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk, and evaporated milk. I've even seen canned fruits - peaches and blueberries - on their shelves. The big shock, for me, was seeing bags of shelled pecans in the cooler near the cash registers.

I couldn't resist looking at the price while I was checking out. A 1 kilo bag is priced at 1450 Philippine peso.

Let me translate that for my American friends. 1 kilo is 2.2 lbs. At the current rate of exchange, 1450 Philippine pesos comes to.........just over $31.00. Let that sink in.

Thirty one dollars for a two & 2/10 pound bag of pecans.

I knew the pecans would be high. Heck, in Georgia, where pecans are grown, they ain't cheap. But, good Lord, I didn't expect $14.00 a pound.

Looks like it'll be quite some time before I have another pecan pie.

Cigarettes in Sibulan

Back in the late 1950's, before my two youngest siblings were born, our family lived in Atlanta, GA in a neighborhood not too far from Georgia Tech. In those days, 1958/1959 when I was 6 or 7 years old, I can remember my dad giving me a Quarter - 25¢. - and sending me to a nearby store to buy a pack of cigarettes for him.

My, how things have changed. Today a parent in Atlanta could not send his or her child to purchase cigarettes. The store could not sell cigarettes to anyone that young, and the Government would probably charge the parent with child abuse.

Needless to say. cigarettes in Atlanta no longer cost 25¢. I don't have first hand knowledge of the current price, but one website gives the cost (as of April 22, 2016) of a pack of Marlboro at $5.23 (Php245).

Compare that price to the price for Marlboro in Sibulan, Negros Oriental. Passing a sari sari store today during my morning walk, I took this photo showing the price as 3 php per "stick". Most Filipinos buy cigarettes by the individual cigarette, not by the pack. At 3 php per stick, a pack of Marlboro would cost 60 pesos - at the current rate of exchange, that comes to apprx. $1.30 a pack.

Off brand cigarettes are even cheaper. At one sari sari, I saw a sign for one particular brand at 2 sticks for 5 pesos. That's 50 pesos for a pack of 20. At another sari sari , I saw a sign for a different off brand at 2 pesos each, or 38 pesos a pack (discounted from 40 pesos per 20).

I don't think I need to mention this, but the low cost of cigarettes in Philippines won't lead me to smoke the damn things. I'm not advocating cigarette smoking, merely making an observation.

Hello Cedartown Georgia

Hello, Cedartown, Georgia. Thanks for making my blog a regular part of your routine.

Take care and God bless.

Jimmy Carter - The Perfect Protestant.

While promoting his latest memoir, A Wasted Life: Reflections of an Old Coot, former worst U.S. President, Jimmy Carter told Huffington Post that Jesus would approve of gay marriage. Carter goes on to say that he has no verse in scripture to back up his claim, even admitting that it is just his own personal belief.

Overlooked in Carter's asinine same sex "marriage" comments is Carter's statement on Jesus and abortion.

Carter said that Jesus did not approve of abortion, except in the case of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. Carter and the interviewer just slid past that little tidbit. He didn't say so, but I suspect Carter would have a difficult time finding verse in scripture to support his claim that Jesus would approve of the "rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother" argument so often put forward by Progressive Christians.

Jimmy Carter's foul pronouncements are a perfect example how Protestantism has corrupted the teaching of Jesus Christ. At one time, Protestants would pick and choose random scriptural texts to support whatever wild beliefs their heretical hearts desired. Now, they don't even do that. It's all about their own personal opinions.

Hello Cedartown.

Hello Cedartown. I'm so glad you took time out of your busy schedule to visit my blog.

As soon as I read the insulting comment on my blog, I knew at once that it could only be you. I went to Google Analytics and checked my stats, and sure enough, I had a visitor from Cedartown.

It's ironic. You tell me to "Get a life"; but yet, you are half a world away and still feel the need to insult and harass me.

Again, I want to thank you for stopping by. I hope you have a good day.

Turning Off the News.

Being retired, I have plenty of free time on my hands. If were living in the U.S., I’m certain that I’d fill the free time from noon until three PM listening to Rush Limbaugh. I’m living in Philippines where the time difference (when the U.S. is on Daylight Saving Time) is twelve hours. When it’s noon in Georgia, it’s midnight here. Consequently, even though Rush is available live on radio stations that can be accessed via the TuneIn Radio mobile app, I’m normally asleep when he is broadcast in the U.S..

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This morning, however, I found myself awake at 1:00 AM PHT. For the first time in quite a long time, I listened to a bit of Rush’s program. After a few minutes, I found that, although Rush was his usual self, and I am still one of his biggest fans, political events in the U.S. no longer interest me as they once did. Having become an ex-pat, I am no longer captivated-nor imprisoned-by what the current U.S. president says or does.

With the possible exceptions of events happening in my old stomping ground of Rome, GA, I have very little interest in anything happening in America today. I suppose it’s a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. The United States has become a virtual cesspool and short of divine intervention, the situation will not improve and I see little point of reading the same stories every day.

I can’t comprehend the current crisis on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Despite several States having constitutional amendments prohibiting same sex “marriage” it is only a matter of time before it becomes the law of the land in all of the fifty States. Along with the evil of abortion on demand, one particular political party is Hell bent on seeing life in America transformed.

As Robert Bork so brilliantly pointed out in his book from 1996, America is slouching towards Gomorrah. Too many conservatives try to place the blame on Barack Obama but I believe he isn’t the cause of the disease but a symptom. The hemorrhaging is so massive that a simple blood transfusion won't do the trick.

 The America people are reaping what they’ve sown ages ago.

Good News for a Change.

From lifesitenews.com:

"A federal judge has blocked the Obama administration from enforcing its controversial contraception mandate against Roman Catholic-affiliated organizations in the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah".

"U.S. District Judge William Duffey ruled Wednesday that the federal government cannot force Catholic schools, hospitals or charities to cover sterilizations, contraceptives or abortion-causing drugs in their health plans, as Obamacare requires of all employers, because to do so would violate their religious freedoms. The Catholic Church teaches that artificial contraception of any kind is gravely sinful".

Rome, GA.

Not quite sure who filmed this, but a Facebook friend found this video on Youtube and posted it. It's the town where I live, Rome GA.

A Birthday Gift to Myself.

Sunday, I ordered a birthday present for myself from Amazon.com. If you want to be technical about it, I actually purchased the book from a North Carolina company, Hedrick Sales which explains why the book arrived so quickly.

The book, My Grandfather's Son by Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas arrived yesterday. I found the book so interesting that I finished reading it before going to bed last night.

I have great admiration for Thomas, and reading his memoir only increased my admiration. He and I are of the same generation - he's four years older - both of us grew up in Georgia (he in Savannah and I in Atlanta) so even though he and I have different experiences, I can relate to much of what he went thru.

Fortunately for Thomas, he had a grandfather who would not allow him to do less than his best and I envy him for that. We may have had a bit more money but I wasn't pushed to live up to my potential as Thomas was.

Thomas made his share of mistakes; he married too early and spent too many years drinking too much, yet in spite of these mistakes, as well as the racial discrimination he faced, Thomas overcame.

Early in his life, Thomas attended seminary with the intention of becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He left the Church, however, because he felt that the Church was not doing enough during the sixties and seventies to combat racism. According to his wikipedia biography, he returned to the Church during the 1990s. Unfortunately, he doesn't go into detail in his memoir as to the how and why of this reconciliation. Part of that would have had to involve an annulment from his first marriage but there is not mention of one in the book.

All in all, this is one of those books that I wish my Liberal friends would read. I'd like to think that they'd be open minded enough to look at things differently after reading Clarance Thomas' memoir.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Politically Incorrect Guide........

I'm not quite sure who determined that, in order to be a proper Conservative, one must also be an apologist for the Confederate States of America. Obviously, someone at Human Events magazine thinks so.

I recently received an email from Human Events offering to sent a copy of H.W. Crocker III's The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War to me, free of charge, if I would subscribe to the magazine.




The email ad gives a list of 7 facts which "today's PC professors refuse to teach about the Civil War."

Being a descendant of more than one Confederate soldier, it's almost expected that I should take the bait.

Not so, I say.

Let's take a look at the list:

(1) Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee: Why they believed, and sincerely hoped, that slavery would fade away naturally.

Not being an historian or an ACWF (American Civil War fanatic) I cannot state for a fact that this accurately represents Lee and Davis' view. True or not, it's rather beside the point, I think. The truth is, slavery was a central part of the economy of the states that attempted to secede from the Union. Support for the Confederacy was de facto support for the institution of slavery.

(2) The widespread belief among leading Northern abolitionists that the Constitution was "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell".

This essay written by abolitionist and mentor to Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison would bear that out. But, can the original Constitution of the United States be rightly called a "sacred instrument" when the document was dripping with human blood by its failure to address the issue of slavery from the beginning?

(3) The Emancipation Proclamation: It didn't free a single slave — and caused draft riots in the North.

True.

(4) How the Federals waged a war against Southern civilians — destroying their crops, their cities, and their homes.

Sadly, the Federals appear to have been engaged in "Total War", though some historians argue against that view.

(5) The real Robert E. Lee: He considered slavery a political and moral evil and opposed secession — and after the war, a New York newspaper thought he should run for president.

Lee may have "considered slavery a political and moral evil" but, it sounds a lot like a so-called Catholic politician being "personally against abortion, but pro-choice".

(6) Nathan Bedford Forrest: though allegedly a commander of the Ku Klux Klan, he wanted more free blacks — and Chinese — in the South.

Allegedly? Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. I can't address his motive for wanting "more free blacks — and Chinese — in the South".

(7) How both Grant and Lincoln thought the Mexican War was morally wrong, but had no qualms waging a far bloodier war to deny the South its independence.

And.........?

It's become popular nowadays to view the Confederates as the ultimate supporters of subsidiarity. There may be some element of truth behind that. As a boy, Jefferson Davis studied at Saint Thomas School at the Saint Rose Dominican Priory in Washington County Kentucky for a few years. Unfortunately, slavery trumps whatever good there may have been in the "Lost Cause".

The White Christmas.

It was nearly 10PM Christmas Eve and we were on our way to St. Mary's church. There was to be an hour long performance by our church choir at 10, followed by Mass. There had been some mention on television earlier in the day that we might have snow this Christmas. While driving to church, I told my wife and 5 year old son that it was highly unlikely. It rarely snows in this part of north Georgia and I had never experienced a white Christmas.

When my son awoke Christmas morning, he found that he had gotten "everything he wanted" - a refill package of foam "bullets" for the toy gun someone had given him for his birthday, battle armor and other accessories for his battery powered hamsters and a white Christmas.

We later heard on the news that this is the first white Christmas the area has received since the 1800's. Granted, to some of my readers (like those in Michigan or Iowa) this snow would hardly be worth mentioning, but this is Rome, Georgia. This is a big deal for us.

There was still snow on the ground as we left for Mass Sunday morning, but there wasn't any ice on our street. The street we live on gets very little traffic - I knew that if it was OK to drive here, then Shorter Avenue (the main road between here and the church) would be perfectly fine. Had there been any ice to speak of on Shorter, it would have already been taken care of.

St. Mary's Catholic church is less than ten minutes away from our house. On the way to St. Mary's, we'll pass quite an assortment of Protestant churches; Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian. I couldn't resist telling my wife that it would appear that these denominations evidently don't believe in following the Ten Commandments, particularly the one that says we must remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. None of the Protestant churches we passed were having services this Sunday. The 2 inches of snow had been too frightening for them.

In fairness, I must say that the 11:00 AM Mass wasn't as full as it normally is, but we did have Mass at all the regularly scheduled times.

Seeing the closed Protestant churches reminded me of Christmas, 2005 which happened to fall on a Sunday that year. It had been announced in the local paper that many of the Protestant churches would not be having services that Sunday because it was Christmas day and the pastors assumed that many in their congregations would want to spend Christmas morning at home with their families. Christmas day, 2011 will also fall on a Sunday. I'll be looking to see how many, so-called, Christian churches in our area will close that day. You can be certain that St. Mary's will be open.

Deal Defeats Handel.

Former Congressman, Nathan Deal defeated former Georgia Secretary of State, Karen Handel in the runoff to be the Republican candidate in the Georgia governor's race.

He wasn't my first choice. I had backed Handel after she received the endorsement of Arizona's governor Jan Brewer. Still, Deal is far and away a much better pick than former governor, Democrat Roy Barnes.

According to examiner.com Deal's margin of victory was less than 1%. Handel could have asked for a recount under Georgia law but choose to concede, insuring GOP unity behind Deal.

There's certainly no hard feelings on my part. I'm not going to speculate as to why Deal was chosen by such a slim margin. It was a close race.

From the AJC :

"Yesterday, Karen Handel called Nathan Deal a 'corrupt relic of Washington.' Today, however, Handel said she is endorsing him as the GOP nominee for governor."

Current GA. Governor, Sonny Perdue, had remained quiet during the GOP primary. Now, he's giving his support to his fellow Republican;

“Our Republican family has nominated an outstanding candidate for Governor.

“Nathan Deal has worked tirelessly to represent our Georgia values in Washington against the forced liberal agenda pushed by Roy Barnes’ allies such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Edwards. The refusal of those leaders to listen to the will of the people on critical issues such as out-of-control spending and health care mandates simply reminds Georgians about the way Barnes ruled imperially here before 2003.

“In contrast, Nathan is a common-sense conservative who has consistently represented the principles and beliefs of our state’s citizens. Unlike his opponent, Nathan Deal listens first and talks second. Now it is time for our family to come together and keep Georgia moving forward.”

Politics, as usual.

Nathan Deal, Karen Handel to face off in GOP runoff.

According to savannahnow.com, the numbers in the Republican primary for Governor of Georgia look like this:

Karen Handel 34 percent
Nathan Deal 24 percent
Eric Johnson 19 percent
John Oxendine 17 percent
Jeff Chapman 4 percent
Ray McBerry 3 percent
Otis Putnam 0 percent

Karen Handel will face Nathan Deal in an Aug. 10 runoff for the Republican nomination for governor. The winner faces former Governor Roy Barnes.

My Choice for Georgia Governor.

Primary elections - particularly in off years - are pretty much for hard core political junkies like yours truly; the Republicans who will vote in the primary are really Republicans. Likewise, the Democrats who will cast their votes in the upcoming primary are equally hard-core. No middle of the roaders, these folks.

One might say that I'm the hard-core of the hard-core. We have early voting in Georgia; rather than wait until July 20, I took advantage of the early voting by voting on Tuesday.

When I first took a serious look at the candidates in January, I considered voting for Karen Handel for Govenor but, at that time it appeared that John Oxendine would be a shoe-in. After Handel received an endorsement from Arizona Govenor Jan Brewer a few weeks ago, I decided that Handel would most definitely be getting my vote in the primary. Brewer is my favorite Republican these days. The day after I voted in the "early voting" I learned that Handel was being endorsed by Sarah Palin.

Getting the endorsement of these two is no small achievement.

There was never a question that there would be a run off after next week's Republican primary. It looks now, though, that Handel will be in the run off, but it's difficult at this point to predict whether it will be Oxendine or Deal running against her. Earlier in the year, it looked like Oxendine would be the one to beat. A run off between Handel and Deal was not seen in anyone's crystal ball this past January.

At any rate, come November, I'll vote for which ever Republican wins the run off. There's no way I could vote for the probable Democrat candidate - former Governor Roy Barnes.

When you throw everything into the mix - his being thrown out of office by Georgia voters eight years ago, the unpopularity of our current President and Democrats in general - it's unlikely that Barnes will be elected in November. Barnes may lead among Georgia's Democrats but getting a majority of all Georgia voters is all together different.