To Kraft Foods CEO Roger Deromedi, EVP Marc Firestone, et al.

Dear sirs:

I have been an avid Oreo fan my entire life. I have vivid memories of enjoying their creamy centers when I was barely old enough to sit upright at the table. I knew that my bologna had a first name (It’s O-s-c-a-r.) before I knew my own middle name. There are many Kraft products that have been a part of my life, so engrained that I hardly realized they were there until the day I realized I had to be rid of them.

You see, before I knew that I wished I was an Oscar Meyer wiener, I knew that Jesus loved me (for the Bible told me so). My faith in God comes before my addiction to Oreos. Thus, I must put my beliefs in the precepts of Christian living, including sexual purity, above my reliance on Kraft products.

I was saddened when I learned that Kraft’s leadership stands firmly against the God I worship on the subject of homosexuality. I was surprised to hear the obstinance with which the executives at Kraft have responded to requests to reconsider this policy. And so now, with heart-broken determination, I must inform you that I am laying aside the above mentioned, engrained parts of my life to join the American Family Association’s boycott of Kraft products.

Farewell beloved Oreos. Perhaps when you set aside your blind tolerance of dangerous and immoral practices, we can resume our relationship.

Sincerely,
Trint Ladd

You can read more about Kraft’s commitment to the Homosexual Adjenda at AFA.net.

As you may know, I am the drama leader at Glenview Baptist Church. Having been in contact with my uncle, a Viet Nam vet, and my nephew, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I wanted to do something special for Memorial Day.

Not to be confused with Veteran’s Day (which honors all veterans, living and dead), Memorial Day is a day to pay tribute to those killed in military service. It began as a day on which the widows of Confederate soldiers would go out and lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers.

I contacted Uncle Robert, who is a Legionnaire, about some material for my tribute. He sent me a script called “What Is a Vet?” I took this and adapted it for Memorial Day. The tribute was read this past Sunday, May 29th, by Brigadier General Bill Guy. Click the links below to hear the audio from the service. (These files are pretty big, so you may want to right click on the link and choose “Save Target As”.)

MemorialDayTribute.mp3
MemorialDayTribute.wma (Windows Media)

And the script can be found here: WhatIsAVeteran.doc

Three of the big four sewage television outlets have joined forces to lobby Washington and the American public for less government interference. According to an article I read today, the TV Watch Coalition, which includes the parent companies of NBC, CBS, and Fox, intends to push for less regulation and to “counterweight such groups as the Parent’s Television Council and the American Family Assn.”

In other words, Hollywood is tired of getting it’s wrist slapped by the FCC for airing indecent content. Instead, Hollywood wants to monitor itself. Now, call me intolerant, but isn’t that a lot like hiring the produces of “Girls Gone Wild” to chaperone you’re daughter’s Spring Break trip?

I got this in an email from my nephew, Sgt. Dustin Ladd, who returned from Iraq several months ago. (It looks like Dustin got it from my Uncle Robert, who did two tours in Viet Nam. Either way, it’s priceless.)

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in theater (That means “in Iraq”, for the rest of us civilians.) during the last 22 months, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are more likely to be shot and killed in our nation’s capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

I’ll get the permit, you guys paint some signs. We gonna have us a peace rally!

“Make Love, Not Laws!”

“No More Violence in the Senate!”

“Hell No, We Won’t Go… to the polls”

Just a few days ago, I posted about an extravagant homeless project in L.A. The Midnight Mission recently completed a new $17 million facility, which seems like a lot of money that may have been better spent on programs to rehabilitate than on a building.

Well, today I got a comment straight from the horses mouth. To be honest, I’m flattered that my little blog got the attention of someone in direct connection with the mission. The comment was so well articulated and addressed nearly every point of my post that I had to give it its own place. The following was posted by Justin Wisniewski, who gave his email address as volunteer@midnightmission.org. If he’s a fake, at least he’s a good one. Hats off, Justin.

There are many problems inherent in this article.

First and foremost, The Midnight Mission is a privately funded organization and does not receive your tax dollars for its operation.

Secondly, The Midnight Mission is not a SHELTER. It’s a transitional housing program that uses a drug and alcohol recovery program, counseling, education, training, and job placement to build a bridge back to self sufficiency for those individuals in need. People don’t just get to walk in and get a free ride, they have to sign up for the program which usually runs anywhere from 18 – 24 months.

The “Hair Salon” is nothing more than a three chair barber shop that is actually run by individuals living in The Midnight Mission’s recovery program.

The “Movies” are a large communal day room where a projector shows various movies, TV shows, or current events on a white wall. The room is more of a respite center to get out of the rain, heat, cold, or just the dog eat dog environment of the streets.

And if you’ve ever seen an individual coming off the streets who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol, you know that they are in desperate need of physical recovery. The Gym offers a place for a person to get that need. If you think you can complain about it, remember that even the YMCA was new once, and those were free centers for individuals to use.

Before passing judgment on an organization you may know very little about, please take the time to research what The Midnight Mission stands for, and try coming down to the center to volunteer for the day. It will change your opinions and open you to a true plight on our streets.

In fact, I have “seen an individual coming off the streets who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol”, many of them, some of whom became regular acquaintances. If it were not for my experience at Faith City Mission in Amarillo, and a few other unrelated instances, I would not be so hard on the homeless system.

In fact, I did do some research on the story before I posted (I always do), but all I was able to find were more references to detracting stories. I apologize that I did not dig a bit deeper. But, the funny thing is that your rebuttal made all of my points valid. Any venture that proposes to help those in need must help them help themselves. And, if you what you say is true, Midnight Mission does just that. Once again, hats off.

(Via Drudge) This week the city of Los Angeles opens its latest crowning achievement, the $17 million “Midnight Mission” homeless shelter, complete with a full gym, movie room, and hair salon. It’s never been easier to be homeless! If I lived in L.A., I’d sure be tempted to give up the daily grind and go watch free movies, eat free food, and enjoy free hair do’s all day.

I don’t pretend to be a great social architect but it seems to me that 17 million dollars could put a heck of a lot of homeless people in career training or create a fair amount of low-income housing. I’m not alone in this thought. Apparently the National Alliance to End Homelessness is pretty upset at this gross misappropriation. The organization’s president, Nan Roman says:

“Since the late 1980s, America has built a mammoth infrastructure of shelters and the number of homeless has gone up, not down. It’s a bit of the if-you-build-it-they-will-come phenomenon at work.”

I think it’s very telling that each great success story on the road to liberal socialism becomes a perfect picture of why liberal socialism doesn’t work. Give a man a fish and he’ll be back tomorrow with a dozen friends wanting more free fish. Where does it end?

When I was in junior college, I was part of a group of students from the Baptist Student Union that worked one night a month at Faith City Mission. The cool thing about Faith City was that it wasn’t free. If you came in to the mission for a hot meal and warm bed, you’d get it, but only after you signed in and got a packet containing info on various day-labor businesses in the area. If you wanted to stay another night, you could, but only if you brought back paper proof that you visited the job placement places and made an honest effort to find work. If you expect a man to learn to fish for himself, you need to give him incentive and make sure he says fed while he learns. Have I beaten that analogy enough for today? I think so.

Read the complete article here.

I found this article on agapepress.org this morning. Wow. Please take a few minutes to read it.

Our brave soldiers, and the rest of the world, are getting a horribly jaded view of the war in Iraq from American media. Thank God that the majority of Americans are not buying in to the liberal media’s hateful spin.

In brief, a wounded Marine called in to a talk radio show to share how he and his comrades were scared to death about the reception they would get in the U.S. based on the media coverage they were seeing in the hospital. They honestly believed that they would face the same persecution that Viet Nam vets came home to.

We saw what the media was saying about what’s going on, and we were worried about what we were actually going to face when we came home. We didn’t know what to expect, to be honest with you. From the news media we were seeing, the whole country was basically telling us we’re a bunch of jerks.
…
What’s going to happen? What will we be facing? Is it going to be like the Vietnam era, are there going to be people spitting at us?

Fortunately, he didn’t come home to insults and protests. He came home to an airport full of grateful applause (a month before the super bowl commercial).

If you know a soldier, let them know that America loves them for what their doing. If you don’t know a soldier, you can find one.

(P.S. If you run into any Viet Nam vets, tell them you love them too, and apologize for the crap the hippy generation morons put them through. Funny, that’s the same group of people who are running the current media smear campaign.)

This was a wonderful case of the press reporting a story that made the press look bad, then promptly “spinning” the story to make America look worse.

USA Today reported the results of a survey of over 100,000 US high school students. Over 1/3 of the students responded that the press should have less freedom, and that the government should be able to “approve” content before it is reported.

Now, to me that says that America’s youth are just as sick and tired of media mouths and daily liberal spin as the I am. No, I’m not saying we should repeal the first amendment, but I am saying that the pendulum has swung and the press is going to have to learn to be more responsible one way or another.

What does USA Today think about the survey results?

Kids aren’t learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes.

Whaa?! How could they possibly blame this on the education system?! In the very next sentence they say:

It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults’ attitudes.

Okay, so if it’s the school’s fault that the kids don’t trust the media, then whom do you blame for the adults’ attitudes? … No response.

One other interesting fact from that survey: A whopping 75% of students responded that it should be illegal to burn the American flag as a political protest. That is, of course, unless the protesters wrap themselves in the flag before igniting it. *smirk*

I keep no secrets when it comes to my opinion of “big media” in the U.S. I cheered when Dan Rather was disgraced for finally getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It only took 25 years to catch him, but at least he’s caught.

I am a strong supporter of what has come to be known as the Couric Expeditionary Force. That is where we take Katie Couric, Dan Rather, and a handfull of other fat-headed, cowardly, elitist, media liars; put M-16s in their hands and American flag on their backs and drop them from a blackhawk deep in the Sudan.

With that in mind, let me share with you an article written by a “boots on the ground” commander in Iraq. “LTC Tim Ryan is Commander, Task Force 2-12 Cavalry, First Cavalry Division in Iraq. He led troops into battle in Fallujah late last year and is now involved in security operations for the upcoming elections. He wrote the following during “down time” after the Fallujah operation.”

The complete article is on WordTribune.com.

Here are a couple of excepts:

“All right, I’ve had enough. I am tired of reading distorted and grossly exaggerated stories from major news organizations about the “failures” in the war in Iraq.”

“Through their incomplete, uninformed and unbalanced reporting, many members of the media covering the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy.”

“What if domestic news outlets continually fed American readers headlines like: “Bloody Week on U.S. Highways: Some 700 Killed,” or “More Than 900 Americans Die Weekly from Obesity-Related Diseases”? Both of these headlines might be true statistically, but do they really represent accurate pictures of the situations?”

“Earlier this year, the Iraqi government banned Al Jazeera from the country for its inaccurate reporting. Wonder where they get their information now? Well, if you go to the Internet, you’ll find a web link from the Al Jazeera home page to CNN’s home page. Very interesting.”

“What about the thousands of things that go right every day and are never reported? Complete a multi-million-dollar sewer project and no one wants to cover it, but let one car bomb go off and it makes headlines. With each headline, the enemy scores another point and the good-guys lose one. This method of scoring slowly is eroding domestic and international support while fueling the enemy’s cause.”

“Much worse are the “talking heads” who sit in studios or offices back home and pontificate about how badly things are going when they never have been to Iraq and only occasionally leave Manhattan.”

“I find it amazing that some people are more apt to listen to a movie star’s or rock singer’s view on how we should prosecute world affairs than to someone whose profession it is to know how these things should go. I play the guitar, but Bruce Springsteen doesn’t listen to me play. Why should I be subjected to his views on the validity of the war?”

“Ironically, the press freedom that we have brought to this part of the world is providing support for the enemy we fight.”

Philadelphia police arrested a group of evangelists at a gay pride event. The group possessed all the necessary city documents required for them to have a public gathering and they followed all the relevant city ordinances. Still, they were charged with inciting a riot and possession of tool of crime… a bullhorn. Wha??

The DA has said that the group directed “fightin’ words” toward the homosexuals gathered across the street. Those “fightin’ words” came verbatim from the Holy Bible. Hmm.

The evangelical group was accosted by a “militant gay rights group” called the Pink Angels, who blew whistles to drown out the scripture reading and held up their pink wing-shaped signs in an attempt to cover up the group’s banners. When the Pinkies started getting mean, the police got involved and arrested… well… the ones who had followed the procedures to get the legal right to be there, of course.

Strangely enough, the ACLU has not come to the aid of these folks who were exercising their first amendment rights. Guess they’re too busy suing “X”-mas carolers for using religious hate speech in their songs.

You can read more in this article.