Merry Christmas Holidays!!
We are once again approaching what we used to call the “Christmas Season.” Now, however, it may as well be called the “P.C. Season,” since so many seem to take offense at calling the season what it really is – the celebration of the birth of Christ. At that birth, the angel proclaimed “Peace on Earth, to Men of Good Will.” That is still the Catholic version of what was proclaimed, although most of the Protestant churches include all men. (“Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men”).
For us mackerel snappers, it is hard to wish peace on earth to consummately evil individuals such as the Fort Hood killer, or Osama Bin Ladin, or the group that produces TV clips of Americans or Jews being beheaded. As far as I am concerned, these are not my “neighbors” whom I am told to love, and I do not wish them “peace.”
While the greeting card makers persist in wishing us “Happy Holidays,” I will persist in replying “Merry Christmas,” and even St. Nicholas, masquerading as Santa Claus, is welcome at our pagan Christmas tree.
As Tiny Tim said, before Disney took over Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol, “God Bless us One and All.” He was speaking to men of good will, I am sure.
Ralph G. Smith | Cave Creek
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Inaugural Cave Creek Bicycle Festival
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support of the inaugural Cave Creek Bicycle Festival this past weekend. It was huge success. Despite the cool weather and slight rain, there were "miles of smiles." Many people came from out of the area (and out of state) for this ride and all were amazed at the hometown feel and eclectic nature of our community. But overwhelmingly, they were blown away by the beauty of our Sonoran Desert and our efforts to protect another 4,000 acres. The "buzz" on our facebook page had so many “!!!!!” marks they were hard to count.
I know some of you were inconvenienced by the random parking and we will try hard next year to make sure that your businesses are not impacted by lack of parking.
Check out the event slide show by Michelle Fish (recommended by a chamber merchant) at www.fisheye-photography.net. I believe she captured the essence of this event and if any of you are in need of a photographer for event or merchant promotion I HIGHLY RECOMMEND HER (personal recommendation not an official endorsement by the Town of Cave Creek).
For planning purposes, the Second Annual Cave Creek Bicycle Festival will be held Nov. 12, 13 & 14, 2010.
Mike Rigney, Asst. Utilities Manager | Town of Cave Creek
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A tremendously successful Bicycle Festival
I would like to thank and congratulate Cave Creek for hosting a tremendously successful Bicycle Festival this past weekend. I participated in the event and was very impressed with the organization, the efforts of the volunteers, and the support of the town particularly considering this was an inaugural event. The volunteers and town came together and put in countless hours to set up the course, attract sponsors, organize the full weekend of activities, and manage a very smooth and fun event. The folks at Flat Tire Bike Shop particularly put in the hours, and their hearts, to make sure everyone had a fun and safe experience. The fact the event raised money to preserve more open space for all to enjoy is the icing on the cake.
After the mountain bike ride I enjoyed lunch with a number of the Wounded Warrior riders (www.woundedwarriorproject.org). You can't help but be humbled by these men and women, themselves wounded veterans, out riding bicycles all over America to raise funds and awareness for their fellow veterans. This group of Wounded Warriors started in Las Vegas and came through Cave Creek on Saturday morning to inspire the crowd and the riders.
We all know the economy is tough right now. One way to get it going again is through local efforts and events such as the Cave Creek Bicycle Festival to bring people out of their houses and together to support their town and local businesses. Here is hoping the festival, and more like it, continue for many years.
Jeff Dalton | Cave Creek
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Swine flu
I know the media love nothing more than any horrible and frightening statistics, yet the constant reports about the H1N1 flu always omit one important factor.
Last year, as I recall, the seasonal flu killed about 136,000 people, and hardly a word was ever printed or broadcast about this. Now they keep running stories that 4,000 people have died of the swine flu.
How many have died so far of regular, seasonal flu? One might think it would be an interesting contrast to compare the two numbers, rather than exaggerate the danger of the swine flu, but oh, noooo.
The Chicken Little, sky-is-falling mode seems so prevalent in the media today, but now they all have switched to the Piggy Little flu freight.
Oh, for some balance.
Geoff Orton | Carefree
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Government Intrusion and Healthcare
Conservatives used to be concerned about government intrusion into citizens' activities, business or personal. Medical procedures are a private business between doctor and patient. The government has no right to be in the room. Putting restrictions on "who gets what" care is exactly the thinking that was behind the "death panel" scare.
I feel the Stupak amendment reveals a lack of integrity in the Republican party concerning government meddling. I believe that it is a patient's right to choose a doctor and be provided the services that the doctor recommends. If a recommended procedure is termination of a pregnancy, and the woman disagrees, she can choose another doctor.
Fundamentally the decision is very simple. If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.
Richard Hamouris | Phoenix
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What stage they are in
There are still a few people who get their world news, as well as daily helping of “green” manure on the old TV networks, the moldy suppositories of liberal bias. As a result these viewers will miss hearing that the fantasy of “man-made climate change” has been shot down by highly-credentialed climate scientists whose opinions are not for sale.
It is convenient truth to state that world temperature reporting stations are located at airports, as well as federal, state, county and city office buildings amid vast areas of concrete, blacktop, traffic, parking and atop buildings among A/C heat exchangers. This results in a 10 degree plus error in average readings.
Warming cult members need to ask themselves what stage they are in:
1. You have become used to the pitch that the world is headed for disaster and life will end? … Conditioned.
2. You have not heard information refuting the whole notion? … Innocent Ignorance.
3. You can’t change your opinion because it’s too much trouble? … Detached.
4. You believe that what you’ve been told is based on “scientific fact?” … Delusion.
5. You don’t want to think about it? … Oblivion.
Is it likely the dwindling ranks of glassy-eyed cult members still marching in Albert’s Dragon Buster Charade will begin to wonder if the river of tax dollars going to government-grant-paid “climate scientists would be better used to offset the huge tax increases planned for the honest taxpayer?
Duh … ya, sure.
John Brebner | Carefree
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Cato Video on the Costs of Obamacare
Few people are more opposed than I am to nationalized healthcare and have been fighting for market reforms as long. Still, it pains me to see our side exaggerate the costs of nationalized healthcare by talking about the total cost and not the incremental cost. The incremental cost is the difference between what is now spent on healthcare in our half-nationalized system and what will be spent on healthcare in a fully nationalized system, putting aside questions of quality between the two. Currently, of course, many costs are hidden from taxpayers, including the cost of citizens and non-citizens using emergency rooms for routine care; the lower wages resulting from employers paying employees in benefits instead of wages; the layers of administrative costs in HR departments, insurance companies, doctors offices, and benefits consultants; and the cost shifting due to the tax code and to different prices for the self-insured and group-insured.
My issue with nationalized healthcare has less to do with cost and more to do with a loss of liberty and the growing unconstitional power of the national government. But if anyone knows of a study that has honestly calculated the incremental costs, please tell me where I can find it.
Thanks.
Craig J. Cantoni | Scottsdale
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Are you concerned about President Obama’s appointees?
Are you concerned about President Obama’s appointees? Should you be?
Here are four appointees to consider:
Cass Sunstein, regulatory czar appointed by Obama and confirmed by congress, has advocated doing away with marriage. Sunstein proposes that civil contracts, instead of marriage contracts, be offered to any two people wanting them.
One wonders about the purpose of this idea. Is it to put unions of homosexuals and heterosexuals on the same level? Since homosexuals haven’t been widely able to elevate their unions to the level of marriage, lowering marriage to the level of civil unions would achieve the same objective: proclaim that unions between a man and a woman and unions between two people of the same sex are equal before the law and society.
Sunstein, who wants to establish socialism in America, openly advocates redistributing America’s wealth to poor nations. In his writings he has even spoken favorably of communism.
Kevin Jennings, Obama’s ‘safe schools’ chief, founded the organization “Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network,” which advocates for homosexuality in public schools. Jennings has long been an admirer of Harry Hay, one of the country’s first homosexual activists, an advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA.
Technically, Jennings is not a czar; he’s head of the Education Department’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.
Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) says Jennings’ “life’s work has been the promotion of homosexuality, even in elementary schools …” King has called on Obama to fire Jennings immediately.
President Obama, at a homosexual support group’s annual dinner, promised to sign hate crimes legislation and repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. He also promised to support his ‘safe schools czar,” Kevin Jennings, and his EEOC nominee, Chai Feldblum.
Chai Feldblum, Obama’s nominee for commissioner of the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), is a homosexual rights activist and a law professor.
Feldblum, who wants to revolutionize America’s mores, has praised polygamy and opposed traditional marriage’s privileged status.
Feldblum says gay sex is morally good.
Feldblum has served as legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union AIDS Project.
Anita Dunn, the White House Communications Director, boasted that the White House “controlled” the news media. She said, “Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control.”
Dunn recently did a White House campaign against Fox News. Fox countered by releasing a video of Dunn saying one of her favorite political philosophers was Communist Chinese Leader Mao Tse-tung, who slaughtered 70 million of his own people.
Arden Druce | Camp Verde
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Bizzaro World
In the 1960s DC comics introduced Bizzaro World, a world turned upside down, where everyone spoke like Jay Silverheels character Tonto; "Me no like ..."
We have entered that alternate dimension where a radical Islamic terrorist may shout "Alah Hu Akbar!" and murder thirteen soldiers while the White house and major media characterize the cause as a stress disorder; where God fearing citizens assemble to protest government policy and are labeled mobsters, Nazis and racists. A world where voters petition their duly elected representatives in majority numbers to turn back the tide of unconstitutional health care reform and are told they are un-American.
This is Bizzaro World in which 10 percent plus unemployment is a sign of a recovering economy and the end of recession. It is a world in which massive debt is viewed as stimulating, where external national threats are met with reductions in national defense; a place that an earthly cooling cycle is labeled "Global Warming" with the solution defined by taxing those industries that cool and warm us. In Bizzaro World our borders are open, but the President’s background is closed, guns on their own cause crime, but criminals are merely misunderstood. This is Bizzaro World where wrong is right and right is wrong; it is our world gone mad.
"Me no like ..."
Randy Edwards | Cave Creek
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Thank you Kiwanis Club
I would like to compliment the members of the Kiwanis Club of Carefree. While a group of Kiwanians were going through a stack of new file folders and computer miscellaneous I had given them, $1,170 fell out of one of the folders. I thought I had gone through everything – knowing that my deceased husband would occasionally stash money away. The Kiwanis people promptly called and made arrangements to return the money to me. They could have very easily kept the money and I would have never known about it.
Thank you Kiwanis Club of Carefree for having integrity.
Name withheld by request
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Really?
When are they going to stop trying to dicate what can/can't be chosen for women that are in the position of HAVING to choose ...?
Thomas Noss | Mesa
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Wild West Days Thank You
The Chamber would like to extend a great big thank you to all the Merchant’s for all your participation and assistance in this year’s event. Everyone pulling together made this a wonderful weekend in town. Many of the merchants looked very busy and we hope that your revenues reflect the same.
A huge thanks to the Feather Horse Society and AZ Equine Rescue Organization for their wonderful display for the families.
The Poker Ride and Boot Races were enjoyed by all with the proud winners to be displayed on our web site, provided we have photos of all.
A big thank you to Faith Weinberg of Big Bronco for her wonderful coordination and patience with the Best Dressed Horse Competition as it went off a little late when our Rodeo Queen mistakenly took the wrong horse from the corral and had to undress and return Tinker and retrieve the correct one for the competition. (Much funnier when Tinker’s owner was back in possession of his stead that was now sporting Red Ribbons). Make sure you check out the website for photos of the winner and runner up.
A huge thank you to Harold’s and Craig Morgan for the wonderful concert that concluded Saturday’s events. Mr. Morgan was a great sport as we all learned later he was a very sick individual when he put on an absolutely fantastic show!! For those country fans that missed it you should catch him next time he is in town.
Last but certainly not least a huge thank you to the Sue Kern, Marshall Stein, Bambi Mueller and Usama for helping us coordinate the media, permits and road closure. That was quite a process that we could not have done alone.
Rat Rod Sunday was fantastic and I am sure the event coordinator will be blasting the event details soon.
Happy Trails till the next time,
Beth Cornell and Carol Reill | Cave Creek Chamber of Commerce
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