The Roots of Country Music - Appalachia to Nashville

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Most people probably have little understanding of the roots of country music in America because it has always been taken for granted that country is one of the core genres we have always had around. It is known as the heartbeat and soul of America and been around about as long as the Europeans have been here.

Over the years we may have heard country music we liked, some even crossed over to pop and rock charts, and many stars in other genres either started as country music singers or became famous and then cut a country song or album. But do we really know from whence it came?

When English speaking America was first being colonized in the 1600's the coastal areas were settled first, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maryland, all by 1634 and it did not take long for the European immigrants to make their way to the Appalachian Mountains, the Southern Appalachians that is, which included the Blue Ridge Mountain range and Cumberland Plateau. Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee territories along with pieces of the Carolinas and Georgia made up the region which served as a barrier to westward expansion.
 

Immigrants came to the area because the coastal regions were already populated and with them came the Old World musical instruments were brought together in barn dances and celebrations by these hardy people settling the region. This was in the days before electricity, before electric guitars and synthesizers

The Irish fiddle, German dulcimer, Italian mandolin, Spanish guitar and African banjo were brought to these celebrations and played together in hillbilly jam sessions far from the operas and symphonies of the cities on the east coast. This came to be known as "Old Time" music.

In the 19th century some immigrant groups moved to the Texas area to settle and further integrated the hillbilly sound with Spanish, Mexican and Native American music and large dancehalls were built where the locals could gather and dance to the sounds. This was the final step in the evolution of the roots of Country Music.

 Then came the 20th century with cars and roads and radio which brought down the barriers of communication and people from throughout the nation could hear this unique American creation. The first country recording was in 1921 and throughout the 1920's as radio expanded so did the country music.



Country musicians were great innovators ever since mixing the instruments from five counties up in the Appalachians and electricity, recording and touring gave them more and more opportunities to do this. Hillbilly music grew in popularity driven by the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers and in 1925 WSM-AM radio in Nashville started the first country music broadcast, on November 28, 1925, when the WSM Barn Dance was first broadcast. In time it would become the Grand Ole Opry under the guidance of people like Roy Acuff.

 By the 1930's and Great Depression people were poor and the radio became the primary source of news and entertainment. Soon a fledgling movie industry introduced the Singing cowboys while radio was expanding the barn dances with legendary country shows being broadcast from Chicago to Texas to California. In the 1940's these shows introduced singers like Roy Acuff, Bill Haley, Eddie Arnold and singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.



Bob Wills and his legendary Texas Playboys was among the innovators of country music when in 1935 he introduced drums to the band, a first, then became the first group with the electric guitar in 1938. Yet it was not until the early 1960's that the steel guitar and drums were fixtures in country bands.

 Hillbilly music spawned Hillbilly Boogie by 1939 and a new country genre called Bluegrass emerged with the sound of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at the end World War II. By this time country music included Hillbilly, Boogie, Blues, Honky Tonk, Gospel and Rockabilly.



To the rest of the world country music was called Hillbilly until 1944 when the name was changed to Folk and Blues music. By 1949 it was labeled Country or Country Western, the latter referring to the singing cowboys of movies and then television. Honky Tonk saw the rise of Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Lefty Frizell and Hank Williams.



Along came the 1950's and country music changed again as Rockabilly dominated with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins leading the way. From 1955-1960 ABC-TV became the first network with a nationwide country show called the Ozark Jubilee that showcased country stars to the nation. Elvis helped drive the cross-over between Rockabilly and Rock 'n Roll.

Late in the '50's came the Lubbock Sound of Buddy Holly and then there was a country backlash as the industry felt rock 'n roll was to dominate. Ray Price, Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton began to shift the music back to traditional country.

In the early 1960's the Nashville sound became dominant with producers like Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Billy Sherrill reviving the genre with legendary singers Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold. Ray Charles introduced Country Soul in 1962 with his release of I Can't Stop Loving You. A new sound in Nashville called Countrypolitan was created featuring the sounds of Tammy Wynette and Charlie Rich. But soon the Nashville sound became stale.

Out west Honky Tonk and Western Swing were merged by Bob Wills and Lefty Frizell to form the Bakersfield Sound. It would encompass the diversity of different styles from Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins and Wynn Stewart.



In other places like Lubbock, Tulsa and Austin the disappointment with the Nashville Sound and control of the record labels was causing an Outlaw movement. Inspired by the success of The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones in demanding creative control of their music and control of their songs, the Outlaws gravitated to Austin where Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became the leaders.

 Not only did their music change but their image as well. Gone were the clean cut, clean shaven cowboys of old and in were the long haired radical Outlaws of the future. Jessie Colter, wife of Waylon, was one of the female pioneers while Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard soon joined forces.

With The Beatles astounding success blending rock and pop music Nashville was hungry to tap into the crossover sound needed to reach the mainstream markets. Others, seeking a return to the "old values" of rock 'n roll, created a new genre called Country Rock.

The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Poco, Buffalo Springfield and Eagles exploded onto the music scene as Southern Rock and Heartland became new subgenre spin offs. Ever since there has been a tug of war between traditional country and country rock or country pop as stars like Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Alabama, Hank Williams, Jr., Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakum, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Keith Urban helped move country towards rock over the years.

By the mid 1970's Olivia Newton John and John Denver captured the Country Pop crossover market and powered their way to CMA and Grammy Awards with multi million selling hits. Soon a whole new group of country performers would take up the mantle.

George Straight, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw among others perform the Classic Country style today while the pop crossover comes from new artists like Carrie Underwood from American Idol fame and newest sensation Taylor Swift who have breathed new life into the country music industry.

What is next? Who knows. Still, those who understand that country music is an ever-changing genre that morphs into a variety of styles depending on the needs of the people and the innovation of the artists, must feel good as a broad range of artists currently dominate the radio airwaves and rule the concert circuit.

As the major record labels collapse, the radio stations strangle on their own automated programming and the formula music once again becomes stale we know it is the time when country music always rediscovers itself. Nashville will be a lot better as a result, all country artists will benefit, the public will reap the rewards of new and innovative country music and history will once again record that the American country sound once again became relevant in a time of need and a time of truth.

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It is FOOTBALL Season American Style so No offense to the Brits and Football Soccer Teams

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Who owns the right to call football football?  And just what is football?



Listen to this Andy Griffin classic - What it was was football!

It seems all the rest of the world is lined up against America in claiming that Soccer is really Football and Football in America should be called something else, but is the rest of the world right? Well we at the CPT make it a point to tell you the truth so here it is.

The games of football, rugby football, soccer football, American gridiron football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, as well as the variations of the games in various countries all share the same history.

While it is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of the foot kicking a ball, there is a historical explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot. These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports (such as polo) often played by aristocrats. There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation, and the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has even been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball.

For that reason all forms of football share and can claim ownership of the term for it has always applied to all of them. Now to get specific, medieval Europe was the time from 500 CE to 1,500 CE so we are talking about a name in use 500 to 1,500 years ago, long before the modern games came into existence.

In the ancient days, well before the time of Jesus, according to the Greek history, the first Olympic Games in the Greek Antiquity can be traced back to 776 BC. The Games continued through the rise of the ancient Greek empire and for almost 12 centuries, until the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned them, in 393 AD. The Games had gradually lost their importance when the Romans conquered Greece and when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. So ended a period of one thousand years during which the Olympics were to be conducted every four years thereafter.

The Olympic games were revived by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the late 19 th century. The Games of the Olympiad, also known as Summer Olympics, taking place every four years since 1896 onwards, with the exception of the years during the World Wars.

As for football and the Olympics, in 1900 soccer became a demonstration sport and by 1908 medals were granted to winners. Rugby Sevens will debut as an Olympic sport at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to include the sport at the IOC Congress on 9th October 2009.

Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC. It describes a practice known as cuju (literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established. Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively.   This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland. There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia, indigenous people played a game called Marn Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian rules football

The modern rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc. Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them.

One of the longest running football competitions is in Australia, the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year since 1858. It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football, although it was played under experimental rules in its first year. The first football trophy tournament was the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne, played in 1861 under the Melbourne Rules.

The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), while the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878. The South Australian Football Association (30 April 1877) is the oldest surviving Australian rules football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup (1867) and the oldest national soccer competition is the English FA Cup (1871). The Football League (1888) is recognized as the longest running Association Football league. The first ever international football match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on March 5, 1870 at the Oval under the authority of the FA. The first Rugby international took place in 1871.

Modern American football grew out of a match between McGill University of Montreal, and Harvard University in 1874. At the time, Harvard students are reported to have played the Boston Game — a running code — rather than the FA-based kicking games favored by U.S. universities. This made it easy for Harvard to adapt to the rugby-based game played by McGill and the two teams alternated between their respective sets of rules. Within a few years, however, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rugby rules and had persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. In 1876, at the Massasoit Convention, it was agreed by these universities to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules, with some variations. Princeton, Rutgers and others continued to compete using soccer-based rules for a few years before switching to the rugby-based rules of Harvard and its competitors. U.S. colleges did not generally return to soccer until the early twentieth century.

By the 1820's and '30's Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale were playing versions of football, often changing rules at halftime. It was so brutal it was called "mob football". On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that was played with a round ball under "Football Association" rules (i.e. soccer) and is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football. The game was played with 20 players per team at a Rutgers field under Rutgers rules.

Another game claiming to be first was played in November 1875 at New Haven, Connecticut between Harvard and Yale, and was part rugby and part soccer. The two teams played with 15 players on a side instead of 11 as Yale would have preferred, and Harvard won by 4 goals and 4 tries, or touchdowns, to none.

In 1880, Yale coach Walter Camp, credited with being behind many of the modern football rules, devised a number of major changes to the American game. Camp's two most important rule innovations in establishing American football as distinct from the rugby football games on which it is based are scrimmage and down-and-distance rules.

So there you are, and you can thank the Ivy League for bringing football to America. Of course it was so brutal that there were 18 deaths and many serious injuries, and was banned on most college campuses, before President Teddy Roosevelt saved the sport by revising the rules when the situation came to a head in 1905 with 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to shut the game down if drastic changes were not made. They were made and modern football was finally born in America.
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College Football Top 25 from CPT Sports Research

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It is that time of the year when the bad stuff, politics, gets pushed off the front pages and the good stuff, college football, gets pushed on and this year there are some new wrinkles that could influence the outcome of games more than crooked agents whose influence hopefully will fade away.

This is the year major college conferences lost their minds and now have names with little relation to their membership. Follow me? Then try this. Perennial powerhouse Nebraska is leaving the Big 12 after this season and joining the Big Ten. Colorado will be leaving the Big 12 for the Pac 10.

By next year the Big Ten will have at least 11 teams but still be called the Big Ten while the Big 12 may still be called the Big 12 with only 10 teams and the Pac 10 will probably still be called the Pac 10 though they may have 12 teams.

If you can follow all that there is a place for you on the Obama economic team. If not trust me. I should know about the conferences. You see I was born in Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa from the Big Ten and I grew up being fed a steady diet of Big Ten games. Earthquakes took place when Ohio State or Michigan squared off on the gridiron with the Hawkeyes.

When I was a Big Ten diehard the only outside schools that had a chance of beating the Big Ten were Notre Dame and Penn State except for those crazy teams in the PAC Ten we faced in the Rose Bowl every year. When the Big Ten played USC or UCLA on New Year's Day very strange things happened out west. However, in the late '50's Iowa won two Rose Bowls as the Big Ten Champion so all was well.

Of course no other conference in the country could compete with them, until I went to school in the mid '60's at the University of Arizona who had just joined the Pac 10 when I got there. Suddenly the run and gun offenses of the Pac Ten became a focus of attention and my view of the western boys changed ever so slowly.

By the late '60's I had moved to Nebraska and in Big Red country you cheered for Nebraska or got kicked out of the state. I got to know the coaches, athletic directors and some of the players and when the NU football stadium filled every Saturday it became the third largest city in the state. The Big Eight thanks to NU and Oklahoma became my favorite and when Texas and other southern schools joined them and it became the Big 12 it was killer conference.

Fact is ever since I moved to Nebraska the stadium has been sold out and the team finished in the top ten in the final polls about 22 of the last 25 years or something like that winning five national championships and playing for a whole lot more. Now that was football. Both of my kids graduated from Nebraska so they continued the tradition long after I left.

Then I moved to New Jersey in the 1980's and had two choices for a local football team, Rutgers or Princeton but we all know the Ivy League really doesn't play football so I cast my hopes on Rutgers because I found out it was really the University of New Jersey with a classy name. Lo and behold by the time I moved to Kentucky Rutgers had developed a respectable program for a school of eggheads.

When I lived in Lexington, Kentucky of course I suddenly became a fan of the SEC where there are too many teams to count but one could always count on Florida, Alabama and LSU pushing for a national championship with supporting help from Tennessee or a Mississippi school.

About 8 years ago I moved to the Washington, DC metro area so I could be free of college football bias and conference addiction and could write an independent and unbiased outlook on our favorite fall past time. We all know the only football in our nation's capitol is the dropped passes and fumbles by our politicians.

So here is my objective look at the upcoming season and my first poll of the top 25 college football teams. As always, viewer comments are expected, especially those who think I overlooked your teams. Time will tell but I would like to hear from different conferences.

The CPT Top 20

1. Iowa

2. Nebraska

3. Arizona

4. Alabama

5. Ohio State

6. Texas

7. Florida

8. Virginia Tech

9. TCU

10. Wisconsin

11. Miami

12. Oklahoma

13. LSU

14. Oregon

15. Penn State

16. Georgia Tech

17. Boise State

18. Arkansas

19. Rutgers

20. Kentucky

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

That's it folks, the pre-season top 25 in College Football from the most objective source in America. Of course we all know the polls will change every week but for the moment this is how we see things through rose colored glasses.  As for the final 5 teams in the polls, rather than act like I know it all as most pedictors do I admit I don't so you write in your favorite teams in the last five spots as it is the only time anyone can be in the Top 25, and it may be the first time for some you pick.

Every college football team deserves to be ranked because it takes a lot of guts and hard work to even make a college team.  In honor of the unsung heroes who don't attend Alabama, Ohio State, Nebraska, Iowa or the rest of the giants, tell me about your local teams that deserve this one time to appear in a Top 25 poll.  We have the rest of the fall to tell you who earns the rankings on the field.

Cheers...   
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Friday the 13th and What a Week in Obamaville

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This was one wild week in the land of Oz, or Obamaville, whichever you choose to embrace.




The Democrats Corruption Scandal:


First on our list of highlights or low lights was the Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters ethics cases. Good old Charlie first ruined Nancy Pelosi's House vote on the "teacher bailout", or "let's make a deal vote Washington style" when he used an obscure House rule to take control of the press filled chamber to seek dignity over his treatment on ethics charges.


It was a passionate plea for something and an invitation to his birthday bash on Thursday night at the most expensive place in New York City, the Plaza Hotel. Not exactly the image one might want when fighting charges you stole money from the taxpayers but Charlie was able to get over his blues at the party while a handful of Democrats and NYC Mayor Bloomberg shared the night.

The ethics panel set his trial for the day before the fall election, November 1 which was a bit strange unless you were Pelosi and wanted to make sure it was too late to impact on the Obama referendum which it is. So at least she won that battle. Preacher Sharpton made his case to canonize Charlie after his resurrection which was a nice Biblical way to disguise corruption and he pleaded the case for dignity. I am a little confused on how someone who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars while presiding over the taxation of all American citizens deserves dignity but the Democrats seem to have a different way of looking at the world.


As for Maxine, she is intent on more discussion of her charges and seems content letting the probe focus on what her chief of staff, her son, did and how she was not aware. If she wants to throw her son under the wheels of the ethics bus that's okay but I worked for several congressmen and it is the job of their staff to keep the congressman informed of everything good and bad going on. You would think she had better communication with her own son unless his role was to insulate her from prosecution.


The Teacher Bailout Bill:


In the meantime Pelosi did get her $26 billion teacher bailout thus rewarding the teachers unions for their campaign support but the explanation for how it was paid for this year with food stamp money from 2014 and why she did not let the governors decide how to use the money instead of telling them what to do makes George Bush, Sr. and his "voodoo economics" seem lame by comparison. When the Obama spending spree is measured by an increase of trillions and trillions of dollars in our national debt, what is $26 billion more.

Obama Press Secretary Gibb's Meltdown:


This week also saw the meltdown of Gibb's during a White House interview. During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.


“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”


The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”


Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”


Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.


Since he is as close to Obama and Rahm Emanuel as anyone we must assume he was parroting their attitude toward the left. So now they have alienated the far left and much of the Democrats base for support not to mention the Independents and Republicans w3ho supported Obama..

Obama Vacation Mania:


The first family is still stinging from the criticism over Michelle Obama's "private" vacation with her daughter to Spain for a few hundred thousand in tax dollars and no one has explained why she was vacationing at a five star Spanish resort instead of being with Barack at his birthday party in Chicago. Of course why they needed ten vacations this year might also be a good question.

The Colorado Primary:


Several states held their primary elections this week and in Colorado it was an Obama boy against a Bill Clinton boy in the race for Senate. Obama won and the Washington media declared the fall election over, that Obama was now going to beat back the challenge. Fat chance though the Republicans sure have not earned the right to wallop Obama. Luck for them they happen to have lost two straight elections to the Democrats. The people, as I discussed in two previous articles, will do what the politicians and news media will not, they will clean out the swamp in our nation's capitol.


Why the News Media is on Life Support:


Finally, if you want to see proof the news media is long past it's prime consider this strange sequence of news coverage. At the beginning of this week we learned that ten humanitarian workers were executed in Afghanistan including six Americans. The slaughter was done in one day. People who had dedicated their lives to help others and were volunteers in the war zone gave up life to serve.


Yet by Monday night Charlie Rangel's rant on the House floor was the headline. Come Tuesday little boy JetBlue stole the show by mouthing off to passengers, stealing a couple of beers and jumping down the escape slide of an airplane, making him the new media folk hero.


His story carried the media until Obama's non-victory in Colorado Wednesday, then back came the sky pilot Thursday and Rangel's Plaza party Thursday night and Friday. This is what dominated the news this week in America.

Here are the ten people who died in Afghanistan and whose story was lost by the stupid entertainment stories in the national news.


-- Mahram Ali, 50: Wardak, Afghanistan


Ali worked as a watchman at the National Organisation for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation's (NOOR) maintenance workshop, a position he had held since 2007, the mission said. "He stayed behind guarding the vehicles in Nawa when the rest of the team walked over the pass into Nuristan." He is survived by his wife and three young children.


-- Cheryl Beckett, 32: Ohio, United States


Cheryl Beckett had been working in Afghanistan since 2005 with a focus on nutritional gardening and mother-child health.


As a student at Indiana Wesleyan University, Beckett, a minister's daughter, developed a global passion for justice and love during her travels to Honduras, Mexico, Kenya and Zimbabwe, according to her obituary.


The IAM said she was a Pashto speaker who had been asked to assist the medical team in translating for women patients. She had been working in Afghanistan since 2005 with a focus on nutritional gardening and mother-child health. She worked in a clinic in Pul-e Charkhi on the outskirts of Kabul. She is survived by her parents and three siblings.


"Cheryl loved and respected the Afghan people. She denied herself many freedoms in order to abide by Afghan law and custom," said a statement from her family released by the Woodlawn Christian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Beckett's father is pastor, according to CNN affiliate WVLT.


"She was honored to be included in this most recent three-week medical journey to the remote populations of Northern Afghanistan. ...Those who committed this act of terror should feel the utter shame and disgust that humanity feels for them."


-- Daniela Beyer, 35: Chemnitz, Germany


Beyer was a linguist and translator in German, English and Russian who also spoke Dari and was learning Pashto, the IAM said. She worked for the organization between 2007 and 2009 doing linguistic research and joined the eye camp so she could translate for women patients. She is survived by her parents and three siblings.


-- Brian Carderelli, 25: Pennsylvania, United States


Carderelli was a professional freelance videographer who worked with a number of Afghan development and humanitarian organizations throughout the nation, the IAM said. "Brian quickly fell in love with the Afghan people and culture and hoped to stay within the country for another year."


-- Jawed, 24: Panjshir, Afghanistan


Jawed was a cook at the Ministry of Public Health's Eye Hospital in Kabul, and had been released in order to attend the Eye Camp as the team's cook. He also assisted with dispensing eyeglasses, the IAM said. He is survived by his wife and three young children. "Jawed had been on several eye camps into Nuristan in the past, and was well loved for his sense of humor," the organization said.


-- Dr. Thomas Grams: Durango, Colorado, United States


Grams was a dentist and a friend of team leader Tom Little, the IAM said.


He had been working with Global Dental Relief for 10 years, and had been to Afghanistan several times, as well as in Nepal, said Katy Shaw, an administrator with the group.


He was a general dentist who gave up his private practice to do relief work, Shaw said. Grams started as a volunteer with the group, which provides dental care for impoverished children, but later became a team leader.


-- Glen D. Lapp, 40: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States


Glen D. Lapp, 40, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, worked for a charity that provides eye care and medical help.


On Sunday morning, Lapp's family received confirmation of his death from the U.S. Embassy, said the Mennonite Central Committee. Lapp worked for the International Assistance Mission, the Mennonite Central Committee's partner organization, which provides eye care and medical help in Afghanistan.


Lapp was trained as an intensive-care nurse and had worked in Lancaster, New York, and Supai, Arizona, the IAM said. He also was a response worker after hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast. He came to Kabul in 2008, and worked at the IAM headquarters. After five months of Dari language training, Lapp began working with the National Organisation for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation. He was responsible for organizing mobile eye camps in the remote areas of Afghanistan.


-- Tom Little, 61: New York, United States


Tom Little, here with his wife Libby, had recently become involved in a program to eradicate preventable blindness.


Little, the team leader, was an optometrist who was affectionately known as "Mister Tom" among staff at the National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation, the IAM said. He arrived in Afghanistan in 1976 with his family and worked as NOOR's optometrist and manager, setting up clinics and workshops.


"He was much loved by both foreigners and Afghans, and was the inspiration for other IAM team members coming to Afghanistan," the IAM said. He is survived by his wife, Libby, and three daughters.


Little's wife, Libby, confirmed the death. She said she knew the worst had happened when she didn't hear from her husband after 24 hours. She described a system they established years ago -- he would give her a short, 30-second call every 12 hours to let her know he was okay. When two cycles went by without a call from her husband, she said she knew something was wrong.


Little had recently become involved in a program to eradicate preventable blindness by the year 2020, his wife said.


"He would come back to the States and get throw-away optical equipment, then refurbished it, then would send it over to set up a little optical manufacturing factory, so they could make their own eyeglasses there," Libby Little said about her husband.


-- Dan Terry, 63: Wisconsin, United States


Terry came to Afghanistan in 1971, the IAM said, and "had a heart for the rural areas of Afghanistan." He worked for many years in the Lal-wa Sarjangal district of the country. "Dan specialized in relating to local communities and liaising with aid organizations and the government to improve services in remote areas," IAM said. He is survived by his wife, three daughters and one granddaughter.


-- Dr. Karen Woo, 36: Britain


The British Foreign Office confirmed Woo's death Sunday. The IAM said she was a general surgeon who joined the Nuristan Eye Camp to be the team's doctor and to help promote maternal health care in Nuristan communities.


Woo's friend, Firuz Rahimi, confirmed her death to CNN and said his friend gave up a comfortable life in London to work in Afghanistan.


Rahimi said he spoke with Woo three weeks ago, while she was packing for a trip with the assistance mission to Nuristan province.


He told CNN that Woo had medicine and medical equipment procured after a period of fundraising. Woo was excited about the trip but was fully aware of the risks she faced making this kind of journey, he said.


MAY THEIR SUPREME SACRIFICE FOR OTHERS NOT GO FORGOTTEN!


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The Innocence of Youth in America Triumphs

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Jackie Evancho – America’s Got Talent Video
August 12, 2010 at 12:32 pm

America HAS Got Talent, and Jackie Evancho is proof enough of that. Britian may have its Susan Boyle, but we Yanks have got a ten-year-old sensation and you can watch her belt those dulcet tones firsthand.

She was introduced to the world on the August 10 episode of Talent. When the Pittsburgh girl performed a rendition of “O Mio Babbino Caro” and received a standing ovation. To listen to the girl sing is to witness a modern marvel. That big operatic voice just shouldn’t be able to come from such a small being. What did the judges have to say about Evancho? Piers Morgan said, “That is one of the most extraordinary performances I have ever seen [on this show].” Sharon Osbourne added, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

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From Main Street to News Media - This is What the Obama Polls Mean!

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He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.
Abraham Lincoln

Today the national and cable news is wondering how President Barack Obama can have a relatively high favorable rating when the general public is solidly against all the Obama policies. In fact the public believes the president is dead wrong on 10 of 12 national issues.

Well if the media ever got out of their ivory towers they would know the truth. The public elected the president to break one of the last racial barriers in America and prove to the rest of the world that we live by the Constitution that guarantees equal rights to all.

A favorable rating means little in terms of government policy and for the media eggheads in our nation's capitol who still believe the sun rises and sets in Washington, get real! The day Obama took office he had accomplished the mission most Americans expected of him, he became our first Black president. From that day on nothing more was expected.

As Obama settled into the role of "just another politician" and greased the flow of campaign money into the Democrat coffers the media and White House started misreading the tea leaves. Obama's agenda was never in touch with America, he placed a dozen social issues over the economy, jobs and the deficit.

The result was his poll numbers faded like that of all professional politicians. So why does his favorable rating seem abnormally high compared to the total rejection of the public of the Obama agenda? First of all, since his disapproval is higher than his approval I find it ridiculous that the media sees it as so high.

But the real story is this. After it became clear to the public that Obama had an agenda far removed from the will of the people, the people determined that his performance had no relationship to his favorable rating. They have no expectations of what he will accomplish because they know he is just another politician like the rest. If nothing more is expected you should have a favorable rating.

What our misguided media gurus really refuse to acknowledge is how little they understand the public. The media continue to compare the Democrats to the Republicans as if that is all there are in America when the public long ago rejected the two parties as representative of their mood. The media trashes any breach of their two party approach yet history tells us the people have never embraced just two parties.

In the last 50 years thanks to the media and professional politicians the two parties have been protected by the most discriminatory laws that still exist. Independents or third party movements face the most unfair, biased and discriminatory laws since Blacks were denied the right to vote. In the 150 years before the two party stranglehold on the American electoral process there were always three major parties and often there were four on the ballot.

Any effort by a Ross Perot or Tea Party to try and break through the political straight jacket is viciously attacked by the media acting as the surrogates for the political hacks that rule America. In most states the Independent voter is not eligible to vote in the primary because the primary is only for Democrats and Republicans. In the few states where Independents can participate they usually have to join one of the two parties for the day in order to vote.

The Independent voter in America is more disenfranchised than Blacks or Hispanics. Yet every year more and more Americans abandon the Democrats and Republicans and join the Independent movement that has been growing since Ross Perot nearly broke the stranglehold 18years ago. In truth, Perot is the Godfather of the modern Independent movement.

Yet modern Independents, who join parties like the GOP in order to even get on the ballot, are treated like second class citizens by the news media. Just today the liberal media was laughing about all the "odd ball" candidates that won primaries and are on the ballot come November 2. Odd balls? I thought any American citizen could run for office, not just the political elite. I thought grassroots candidates always were the best reflection of the mood of the people.

So why do the news media label them odd balls and try and undermine their efforts to get elected? It can only be because the media has such a cozy relationship to the professional politicians they want to protect the Obama, Pelosi, Reid and even Republicans who are card carrying members of the good old boy network.

Now here is the real insight from Main Street. There is a reason that the only group that approaches our politicians in Congress for the lowest favorable rating in America is, of course, the news media. There is a reason Main Street trusts the citizen bloggers more than the news media for getting the truth. And there is a reason Main Street knows the news media is driven by entertainment rather than truth, and by bias and polarization rather than facts.

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and force a new one that suits them better.
Abraham Lincoln

The media elitists share the same bottom dwelling position as the politicians because long ago they lost their objectivity and choose ratings over truth, revenue over integrity and egos over honesty. I say good for America! The sooner we break the two party stranglehold and the news media domination of our nation's capitol the sooner we can have hope and inspiration for the future.

Odd Balls are American compared to elitists in the media and politics.  In fact, by today's standards Abraham Lincoln would have been an odd ball as he had no formal education, minimum social skills, was rather tall and gawky and was a candidate from a fourth party on the ballot.  We would never have had America's greatest president if odd balls weren't elected.  Elect Odd Balls - things can't get any worse!
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Primary Losers News Media, Pundits, Democrats and Republicans - the Mighty Beast is Awaken

With the book almost closed on the primary campaigns this year the entire Washington establishment has entirely missed the message given by the voters across the country. Not surprising with the egos that dominate the mirrors of Washington, they have become such a legend in their own minds.


Today, the day after Colorado, Georgia, Connecticut and Minnesota party voters went to the polls, the analysis from Washington was nonsense and it did not matter if it was from the news media, the political pundits, the political parties or the politicians, they were all spinning yarns that made Mark Twain classics seem lame.

One thing is clear and the know-it-alls in our nation's capitol haven't got a clue, there is a tsunami bearing down on Washington and a whole lot of people will be unemployed come November. If you study the signs from across the country starting with the New Jersey and Massachusetts races at the beginning of the year, politics in America and news media analysis are dead in the water.

The Tsunami bears the name THE PEOPLE and those people could care less what the media or politicians in DC say, think or do, the time has come to clean house once and for all. No one expects it to be easy. It may take two or three election cycles, but the restless spirit of the Beast, the conscious of the American people, has been awaken to the fraud, lies, deception and addiction to money that dominates every aspect of life in the capitol.

Special interests supply the narcotic, money, to fuel the corrupted votes of the politicians, as the pundits spin stories to keep their pet politicians in office, while the politicians shout change and do what they have been doing for years, sell out the public and the nation, and all the while the media cover up the truth.

The primaries this year lifted the veil on the unholy alliance of the news media, pundits, political parties, politicians and special interests. Don't think for a minute that the people do not understand. Just look at the analysis if you want to see the truth.

This morning on the sanctuary for liberal socialism, NBC's own MSNBC, a steady stream of liberal analysts from the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Huffington Post, and on and on touted the great Obama victory in the Colorado senate race. Obama backed Bennet while Bill Clinton backed the opponent Romanoff.

Bennet won with 54% to 46%. But the Washington insiders missed the real facts of the race. Bennet got 183,521 vote against Romanoff with 155,016, meaning 338,537 Democrats voted. In the GOP primary Ken Buck upset the favorite with 52% to 48%, or 209,967 GOP votes to 197,143 for a total GOP vote of 407,110. That means both GOP candidates beat the winning Democrat by 26,446 and 13,622 respectively while an astounding 70,000 more Republicans voted than Democrats.

After spending millions of dollars more than the GOP candidates and having Obama come to Colorado and hold fundraisers, along with election day voter robo calls, Bennet and the Democrats still got clobbered. But that it only the beginning. The real source of voter discontent in America is the huge block of Independents who are the force behind the Tea Party.

In Colorado Independents could not vote in the primary unless they joined a primary which 82,000 did. However, the vast majority of Independents, about 750,000, did not even vote in the primary. This is the group that is overwhelmingly anti-politician and anti-incumbent. Poll afer poll show they are mad as Hell at both parties but madder at the incumbents. Bennet is the Senate incumbent and should lose the vote of the Independents by a landslide. Combined with the GOP vote total an Obama backed Democratic incumbent who supports the work of Obama and Pelosi should be easily defeated in the general election.

You will not hear that truth from the Washington news media, political pundits, political parties or the politicians because they are in denial and soon will be swept away in the general elections no matter how much special interest money and how many trips Obama may make to Colorado. Stay tuned and listen for the sound of the approaching Tsunami.

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Outside the Beltway - The People's View - Colorado Primary

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A new feature of the Coltons Point Times is local election analysis from local people who are not partisan hacks. These are real people far removed from the Washington beltway.

Our first analyst is Ed O'Connor from Northern Colorado and his analysis was given just before the primary yesterday. Ed was one of the record setting Colorado voters to vote by mail. He is a retired fighter pilot from the Air Force and retired commercial pilot from Northwest Airlines.

All photos are from Ed and the plane is one he built and flies throughout the country.

His analysis and predictions follow:

Hey Jim: I live in Weld County, a very conservative area of Colorado. Did I mention we have a lot of water that Denver wants here in Colorado.


From a political viewpoint, just about everyone I associate with is conservative and a Republican and is pretty unhappy with the present congress, the President and the state officials. That being said:


The Republicans have a golden opportunity to gain back some of the losses from the last election but as usual, egos and money have really screwed things up. Not to mention some charges made against the candidates for Governor and Ken Bucks inability to realize he is never off the record when he speaks.


I am a big believer in Party trumps individuals in a two party political system. There is no substitute for being in the majority. If your party is not in control of the majority you really have nothing. You do not control the agenda, the committees, the bills nor the votes. So it really pisses me off to see the Republicans blow an opportunity to take back the statehouse. Ritter has been a disaster to the state.


I listen to these politicians make statements that if they are elected they will do certain things which any one with a brain knows that unless they are in the majority, they stand no chance to accomplish any of what they say.

So I fail to understand people like Trancedo who just make it more difficult to gain a conservative majority in the state regardless of who it is.


At present, I think Ken Buck (who is from Weld CO) will win the Republican Senate race and will beat any Democrat running, Bennett, or Romanoff.


The Governors race is harder to call because of the Republican bickering, Trancedo in the race who draws all of his support from Republicans. As of now Hickenlooper looks like he may win because of the split vote for the Republican or Constitutional Party Candidate


And I think Markey will be defeated as no one in this district is happy with her except the Democrats and this is a Republican district.


Of course I have been wrong in the past so who knows.

[Note from Publisher - Results showed Ken Buck did win as Ed projected. He will oppose Bennet in the general election. Ed said it was too close to call the GOP governor's race and with most precincts reporting the race between Maes and McInnis is 50% each with Maes, the surprise outsider, about 3,000 votes ahead. It looks like it is headed for a recount. Ed is right again. His final predictions about Hickenlooper and Markey concern the general election and will not be known until November 2. Way to go Ed - a perfect record so far!]

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