Manns Medium

As a novice and not an expert in Middle East Affairs, I have always said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his loyal followers and party was the biggest obstacle to Middle East Peace but if things continue as they seem to be going right now, the opportunity for the next American President to build his/her legacy on being the one who finally forged peace in the Middle East will be extremely possible and probable.  According to the Wall Street Journal in an article titled “ Supporters Rally Around Netanyahu Amid Police Probes; Pressure is mounting on the Israeli leader, who tells crowd the left wing and the media want to topple him” written Rory Jones, it reports that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a rare public rally here as police corruption probes pose a growing threat to the Israeli leader’s 30-year political career.  Mr. Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party and known by his nickname “Bibi,” on Wednesday blamed the turmoil on a “witch hunt” by...

In a nation claiming to be so Christian, we surely ignore the most glaring thing of all.  If you are truly a child of God then you were made in his image.  His image is a spirit; a spirit has no skin color so why does this one fact escape us all?  It does so because that’s the way evil wants it and as long as we are willing to be led by the nose by evil, then that is the only way we will see it.  The differences in skin tone are due to pigmentation, pigmentation necessary to protect your body from external factors period.  What defines you is not the outside or anything else evil wishes you to believe.  What defines you is how you conduct yourself day by day as a child of God but before you make any attempt to feed the hungry and house the homeless, you need to perform one very important act first. The first thing you must do to become a much better you and pleasing to the God you claim to serve is remove that beam from your eye first.  In other w...

You can call it selfishness, you can call it jealousy, you can call it ignorance or you can call it greed but whatever you wish to call it the number one driver of violence is simply the hatred and complete disdain we have for ourselves. There are no truer statements than the one that credit is given to Eleanor Roosevelt which says “no one can make you feel inferior” and the one I coined that says “our only true limitations are those we place upon ourselves”, both meaning that no one else’s causes you more pain than the pain realized when you know within the depths of your very soul that you are the main reason your life is stuck where it is today and every day.  Anyone may have the strength to knock you down but only you can give them the power to hold you there. You can set up all the barriers you want, you can set up all the obstacles you wish and you can put up as large or high walls and hurdles as you please but you will never stop me from achieving that which I find the ...

If we honestly take a few minutes to truly think about wars, conflicts, battles and skirmishes, these things often originates between two people who cannot seem to agree simply to disagree.  Each find another, just as passionate, defensive and often times arrogant about his/her position and when they fail to sway the other over to their side of the argument, immediately seek others who agree with them and then take open aim at those who don’t.   People can be funny that way because what may have started out as just a difference of opinions has now morphed into a full-fledged war over an idea that neither is willing to compromise on.  We claim that it is a matter of principle and to compromise would mean that we must compromise our principle and nothing defines a human being more than principle.  If the end result of this style of thinking didn’t result in such serious consequences, we could all laugh about it and move on. History is then repeated and lesson...

What’s the message? It’s simple as long as you wear a badge and a gun, you have the right to initiate a confrontation and if you feel yourself losing that battle, you can now draw your weapon and kill the threat.  You may not be so lucky if you are a civilian but why not take a chance.  You could fall under the George Zimmerman defense or the gentleman who shot and killed that young boy for loud music.  This gives you a 50/50 chance.  But if you are unarmed, hard of hearing or playing with a toy gun, your chances of getting justice may not be so balanced. Consider this, the grand jury said that Mr. Wilson followed the law and the training he received in law enforcement training but I have to wonder if that is true or have the training changed since I attended.  You see, we were instructed never to engage without back up especially if you were outnumbered.  Mr. Wilson’s odds were 2 to 1.  We were instructed to monitor and track until the numbers we...

You know that every once in a while, I think that Hollywood can make a very valid and thought provoking point with some of the shows it produces but most of the time I think that they just cobble ideas together and find more drama than substance.  I say that to make a point about something I had not thought about and am sure many others haven’t even considered. First a little background.  I was watching the show called “Criminal Minds” where the father of an abducted son was asked why he stopped going back to the place where his son was abducted after during so for several years like clockwork.  His response was because he felt that his son was no longer alive so he felt no need to continue to go there.  It got me to thinking about all those other times I had heard the similar statement coming from parents and loved ones of those who have gone missing and the result of them owning that feeling that they were still alive and never losing hope.  It made me be...

We all should be very much aware now that post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD does not only affect combat veterans but all of us if we have experienced a terrifying incident.  Yet this knowledge and recognition has not translated to the awareness of people in charge providing those workers/employees with the necessary personnel or information to properly deal with this fact. Much like military members who have served in peace time had to constantly deal with the possibility of being called to duty at any time while they wore that uniform, so is the case for every police officer and correction official who steps into that arena, trying to make a living and provide for his or her family.  And as much as those veterans who are often overlooked as suffering from such, so are many departments overlooking those officers previously mentioned. Now don’t get it twisted, this is not an excuse for their actions because even if they are suffering from this disorder, that does ...

Patriotism is defined as the love that people feel for their country and while I truly cannot argue with that I do take offense at the extension added to this definition by some who claim the title but refuse to acknowledge that they do not have a clue to what they are talking about. I speak of those who say that they love this country yet will do all that they can to sell it out by forging ahead with bold, discriminatory and selfish ideas delivered to them on platter of money.  Look around and you will see exactly what I am talking about.  Politicians who claim that they love this country but will disallow anyone else different from them the chance to live their lives as they see fit.  I love this country but I am going to keep you from voting because you don’t vote like I want you to.  I love this country but I am going to deny you the same rights and freedoms that I wish to enjoy. Average Americans who dresses in camouflage outfits and gather millions of ...