Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Gotta Hate that



You gotta hate it when a plan doesn’t come together.  When Jason Best heard that a local theatre was going to be showing the controversial movie “The Interview” he began to see dollar signs.  Best said that he heard all the hype about the movie and its limited showing and purchased $650.00 in tickets with plans to resell them at a higher price (scalp them) online and make his fortune or at least double his money. 
The plan fell apart when Sony announced it was streaming the film online for half the price on sites like YouTube, Hulu and Netflix and apparently nobody was willing to pay the inflated price.
Now the thwarted scammer is crying foul and is demanding a refund from the Esquire theatre.  Management at the Esquire see it different, they say they don’t view Mr. Best as a customer but as "a businessman who was trying to recoup a loss at the theater’s expense."  And not a particularly ethical business man either, after all, scalping tickets is illegal. 
And that wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out and no one was supposed to know what he had done, but he should have known better. After all, the Bible clearly tells us “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Sorry George



Well, that learned him.  And it certainly acted as a deterrent because he never did it again.  But what if he didn’t do it the first time? Just recently a South Carolina resident was exonerated 70 years after he was executed.  And that my friends is why I’m opposed to capital punishment. 
In 1944 George Stinney Jr was arrested for the murder of 7 year old Mary Emma Thames, and 11 year old Betty June Binnicker.  Within 90 days he had been tried, convicted and executed.  His trial lasted 3 hours, the jury deliberated for 10 minutes and 53 days later they executed him sitting on a phone book because he was too small for the electric chair.  He was 14 years old. 
That is what happened to an African American child accused of killing two white children in the Deep South 70 years ago.  But do you think Stinney is the only person, black or white who was executed for crimes they may not have committed? And you can’t undo an execution, you can only apologize.
One thing we have discovered through the years is that our justice system isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and we have to live with that, but people shouldn’t have to die for it.  
Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Cancelling Christmas



It’s funny, not funny ha-ha but funny strange, how quickly we lose interest.  This summer when the victims numbered in the hundreds, news about the Ebola crisis was everywhere.  There were fund raising efforts happening and you couldn’t open a newspaper or turn on the television without reading or hearing dire predictions.  But now, not so much.  You have to hunt to discover that while those who were predicting an apocalypse weren’t anywhere close to being right that Ebola still continues to ravage the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.  Perhaps we lost interest because they are so far away or maybe we only have a finite ability for empathy on that scale. 
In an attempt to prevent further spreading of the disease Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma has announced that Christmas has been cancelled.  Not Christmas itself, just the public celebration of Christmas.
I would suspect that Christmas will be celebrated in Sierra Leone even without the public gatherings, and the President understands that.  Because even though Sierra Leone is predominantly a Muslim country President Komoma is a member of the Kissy Dockyard Wesleyan Church and understands that Christmas is something that happens privately in the heart and not necessarily publicly on the streets.
    
Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.