George Washington considered himself a planter much along the lines of the Roman tradition of Cincinnatus. Early in the RomanRepublic , the Senate ruled Rome. In a time of war, land holders were called to come and form an army to defend Rome. In such a time of strife, a dictator was appointed and given temporary powers to rule until the end of the conflict. Cincinnatus was called to duty in 458 BC and successfully led the defense of Rome. When the conflict was over, he resigned his position and returned to his farm. This was the Roman tradition until around the time of Julius Caesar. Not exactly true since the last two centuries of the Republic were difficult with the political leadership and Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar shifted the Roman Republic away from the ideas of Cincinnatius. Learned about Cinncinnatius in 7th grade.
Thank you very much. Just what I needed, as I was not able to go to liturgy today because of medical issues.
God bless you for posting this. Brought tears, hopefully of healing.
love in the Lord,
pelagiaeast
The Second Amendment, like the other nine in the Bill of Rights, empowers individuals to protect themselves against a tyrannical government, whether that government be foreign or domestic. Therefore, it recognizes the right of every citizen in good standing to keep and bear arms suitable for use in a militia, a fighting force of last resort. That means weapons suitable for a contemporary infantryman.
Therefore I propose the following:
1) Allow the private possession of any weapon a person can lift, move, deploy, and fire without human or mechanical help.
2) Allow unrestricted access to clips, magazines, and any other devices suitable to load ammunition into the weapons specified in #1.
3) Allow unrestricted access to ammunition suitable for the weapons and devices specified in #1 and #2 above.
4) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal taxes.
5) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal registration.
6) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal permit requirements.
What’s curious to me is how the gun-grabbers are all of a sudden become so pro-hunting. I know these people: they hate hunters and hunting, and practically every other aspect of rural Red-state America.
The killing of a man is forbidden and is considered one of the three major sins. At the time this commandment was given to the people it had an important significance aimed at eliminating the destruction of one’s fellow man. It is forbidden not only to take the life of a man, but even to think of killing. The faithful Christian also is forbidden to take his own life. His own life does not belong to him, but to the Creator to Whom life returns.
This commandment reminds us that one has no right even to shorten the life of man by using slander and deceit to undermine the health and dignity of others. The careless use of the tongue, gestures and intentions are forbidden by this commandment because they offend others and shorten and corrupt the health and courage of others. This commandment forbids even the careless driving by which our modern civilization takes the lives of thousands of people.
Waging war against a nation, causing the lives of thousands of people to be uprooted, is forbidden, although it is justified when a nation defends itself to protect the lives of its citizens against the offenders in an unjust war. In the New Testament, the defender is urged to use sympathy and love in order to calm the offender and to increase his welfare. The Christian is admonished not to challenge and insult the offender, but rather to cooperate with him and to pray and work for the peace of the world.
The commandment is actually “Thou shalt not murder”. All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. It’s poor scholarship like this that leads to the pitiful traditions that have infiltrated the Church.
Failure to protect your family, or any other innocent person is constructively violating the sixth commandment by your inaction. This does not mean that a Christian must own a gun, but he cannot be an absolute pacifist when it comes to protecting innocents. Killing is sometimes a nececary evil.
Except as Fr Webster has pointed out, killing can be a lesser good if the victim is an aggressor intent on harming innocents. It’s regrettable but only in the sense that most everything in the created order is regrettable because of the Fall.
On Wednesday, I was sitting on the porch reading and a block away I saw two police cars and an unmarked car (from which jumped two men with “Parole” vests) roll up on a guy standing on the corner. Weapons drawn they were yelling the customary, “Get on the ground! Show me your hands!” Ten minutes and they were gone with him and his handgun. He was a “parolee-at-large” who was seen at a little “bodega” two blocks away and he had a gun in his jacket.
On Thursday, two ex-cons with warrants were seen about six blocks from my house – one was reported to have a gun – and and they split up and ran when the police showed up. Two hours later, one of them was confronted by the police, refused to show his hands, reached into his pants, and was shot dead on the street.
Last night, my wife came back from walking the dog, yelling to me that our garage door was jacked open. Someone had cut the padlock off the door, forced the door off the track, and stole my bike & equipment, and a bunch of donated stuff she gives to children & families as a social worker for Children’s Hospital (e.g. a big box of new Van’s sneakers in children’s sizes, toys, etc.).
I have worked around these sort of individuals for years and heard enough consequences of “the Fall” to last me a good long while. I judge no one. However, my reaction was quite primal, and I all I could hear was the live version of Rage Against the Machine & Cyprus Hill How I Could Just Kill a Man, which, I might add, is not for the prudish, but it makes the point:
Here’s an example just a little sample
How I could just kill a man
One tried to come in my home take my chrome
I said yo it’s on, take cover son or you’re assed out
How do you like my chrome, then I watched the rookie pass out
Here is something you can’t understand,
How I could just kill a man.
One chorus and it was done. Hyperbole. Violation is violation. Some punk-assed punk in your space and gone with your stuff. And what would you figure the likelihood of potentiated violence if I owned a handgun?
I was making no comment as to the Bill of Rights or the law; in fact, the law is my delight (Ps. 118:24). Rights is rights, Mr. Michalopulos, but everything comes with a price. You cannot deny that the mere presence of a gun in the home is twelve times more likely to result in the injury or death of a household member or visitor than an intruder (Narang, P., et al. “Do guns provide safety? At what cost?” South Med J. 2010 Feb;103(2):151-3). An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine the week after the shootings in CT pointed out that the combined total of shooting victims in Oak Creek, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Newtown was 95, while the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011 showed an average of 88 murders by firearm per day in the US, and more than 200 serious firearm injuries.
Rage at a lost bike is fleeting. Pointing a firearm at another human being – regardless of the justifiable ethics of the action – is forever. I too believe in the Bill of Rights, and I exercise my right in my own way. I know some real rodents posing as human beings who go to church; one even had a handgun in an ankle-holster. That’s their right as well.
For the sake of argument – pardonez, accuracy – I would refer you to Table 20 of the FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2011: Murder, by State, Type of Weapon. Holy Cow! If you’re more interested than me, there is an Excel file available to download. Some highlights:
Top 5 ranked states for murder:
CA: 1790 murders, with 31% not committed with a firearm
TX: 1089 murders, with 36% not committed with a firearm
NY: 774 murders with 42% not committed with a firearm
PA: 636 murders with 18%not committed with a firearm
MI: 613 murders with 26% not committed with a firearm
Hey, and what the hell,
OK: 204 murders with 35% not committed with a firearm
Now, I grant you that this includes shotguns, rifles, and other “unidentified” firearms, but with the exception of the great state of NY (where “pushing,” presumably into the path of a subway is considered a “non-firearm” form of murder), Americans kill with firearms nearly 3 to 1. And to think I specifically went to Philadelphia on July 4, 1976 for the Bicentennial (and somewhere in this video, seated behind President Gerald Ford, is Archbishop Kiprian (Borisevich) who gave an invocation), only to have Puerto Rican Separatists threaten to blow up the Liberty Bell. They wouldn’t try it today. Everybody in Philadelphia – save 12% – is carrying a gun.
A State like West Virginia who had voted Dem for a long time, sure didn’t like the ‘guns and religion’ comments made by our President. Needless, if I am not mistaken, they have voted red the last two Presidential elections.
The only legitimate need? I envy you, the police in your city must be awsome. Every year in this country, private citizens shoot more criminals in justified shootings than the police. Sadly, there is a whole lot of legitimate need for guns in the atheistic mess of a society.
Sasha, while I support the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment, it’s this type of attitude that makes me cringe. In the past 150 years there hasn’t been a single instance when an American citizen needed to take up arms against his government. I, like most Americans, believe in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that this doesn’t mean that every person should be allowed access to any kind of fire arm they can lift or fire.
Except the the Whiskey Rebellion, Shays Rebellion, the Labor Movement in the early 1900’s and that trifle of THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Other than that, no one has ever taken up arms against the government, you are correct.
I don’t know if the liberals hate them. Vermont is more rural than parts of Texas which is suburban and few horses or hunting areas In fact, there are rural Blue States, Vermont and Oregon and Maine off hand, Urban and Suburban Red States, Texas, Florida. Florida is a little purple on the presidential. In fact about 40 years ago Republicans did better in San Diego have rural areas left than Bluefield West Virginia lots of rural areas. Gun Control is not the only issue here. San Diego got a lot of immirgation while Bluefield didn’t. areas
Perhaps you’ve never driven across Texas. It’s almost entirely rural, with a couple spots of urbanization. Texas is larger than all New England combined (larger than England too, for that matter).
Texas is 26 million how can that be call a rural state, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, El Paso are in the top 30 largest cities. In 2050 Texas could be 50 million people larger than maybe than California since its gaining population while California might lost 10 million people by 2050 being an expensive state. You can also drive miles and miles in California and there are small towns but you would not call California rural. Houston is a bigger urban area than Riverside, Orange County, San Diego County it only is smaller than Los Angeles. San Diego is number 2 largest county in California and Orange County is number 3 and Riverside number 4.
Speaking as a Texan, I would say, “You both are right.” There are five heavily-populated centers in Texas, and however many mid-sized cities. At the same time, however, Texas is so large that there are great expanses of land with only small towns or tiny map-dot communities. “Rural” is not a demeaning term, in case that is what some are thinking.
To give some perspective … California has 239 people per square mile; New Hampshire 140; Texas 97; Vermont 65 and Maine 39 … so New Hampshire is more urban than Texas is … but, Antonia, I will agree with you … Texas (and California for that matter) has many rural areas that are sparsely populated, while Vermont and New Hampshire have areas that are urban.
I don’t count states with 26 milion populations as rural. The new England states are small in size but have small towns. Does Vermont have a metro area of 4 million. Houston, El Paso, Dallas, San Antinio, and Austin are in the top 30 largest. Population density has little to do with being urban or rural. Counties that have under a million are not large urban/suburban areas. Texas is too large of a population to be called rural. It will be more than 30 million people in 2020 a size of a European Country.
Harris County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, which is the fifth largest metro area in the U.S.[1] As of the 2010 census, the county had a population of 4.1 million,[2] making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is Houston,[3] the largest city in Texas. It was founded in 1836.Dallas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (colloquially referred to as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex). As of the 2010 census, the county had an official population of 2,368,139[1] and is now the ninth most populous county in the United States. Dallas county was founded in 1846 and was named for George Mifflin Dallas, the 11th Vice President of the United States.
Its county seat is Dallas[2], which is also
See most people in Texas live in the large counties or counties next to them not the rural areas.
Just for perspective on the issue of counties vs. urban states. California has 58 counties of which only 9 have a population of more than one million. I would agree that counties with more than a million people should be counted as “urban”. However, California has 49 counties with less than one million population led by Alpine County with a total population under 1,800 … now that is very “rural”.
Sugarland, where I served for 3 years is not in Harris County. It is in Fort Bend County. Despite its cities, Texas is a very rural state with its own culture.
Sometimes I wonder about why I’m a little slower than many people. I can’t spell that good many times here its typos. As a kid I was diagnosted with ADHD or in the 1960’s it was just called hyperactvity. My father has normal intelligence but reads at a 6th grade level and he finished high school. I have difficulty keeping jobs since I’m slower at certain things.
Cynthia, You know a lot more than I do in some areas, and I always read your posts. Your comments are interesting even with the typos. Thinking outside the box is good. One of my favorite people in the world, and a great inspiration to me, is Temple Grandin. I hope you’ve read about her and watched the movie “Temple,” which is about her life and her great accomplishments.
I have spoken to Temple Grandin several times and one time, she shared some of her architectural plans for an animal handling facility with me. I felt very privileged to see them. She said she imagines herself as the animal being routed or managed in some way and tries to make that experience as good as possible for the animal, even as it is their last experience on this earth as they are led to be slaughtered. With every experience that she has, she doesn’t try to judge the experience as good or bad, but instead tries to see whether that experience is teaching her something. She told me she fell in a vat of some kind of chemical by mistake once and that she felt she felt fearless and clear after the experience and surmised that it might be related to some drug that might be good for her. Indeed, there was such a thing. She is always solving things for herself she thinks might be useful for others through introspection and empathy.
You can read about how she got into this field in her Emergence, Labelled Autistic book, her first writing, an autobiography. One of the things I like about her is that she is not afraid to be unique and uses her uniqueness in some of her inventions. My favorite invention of hers is the hug machine, a full body experience in a machine that you can purchase from her. Basically, it is a kind of table in which you can lay down in a way that feels comfortable to you and be higged, with precisely the kind of pressure you might want or need because you control that pressure yourself. At a demonstration of said machine, I’ll have to admit to being a bit of a hug hogette and having fifteen separate hugs, some lasting quite a while…Check it out:
I would suggest that the leap from ADHD, and some of the other difficulties you describe, directly to Termple Grandin is extreme and premature.
The vast majority of children with ADHD naturally resolve without any intervention beyond adolescence, but approximately 5% of those children remain ADHD as adults. Likewise, adults with ADHD are more likely to have familial (genetic) histories, and (undiagnosed) learning disabilities as well, and benefit from accurate diagnosis. There are new stimulant and non-stimulant medications for adults that, in conjunction with cognitive assistance, are very effective in improving attention, reading, spelling, etc. Unfortunately, testing of neurocognitive functioning (including learning disabilities) is usually expensive without insurance coverage. You should speak with your doctor.
As a side note, I started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is a speech-to-text dictation software package, using a headset & microphone. The technology is so good that I can dictate very technical case notes, reports, articles, etc. and eliminate nearly all the typing errors of dyslexia (missing words or phrases, doubled words, misspellings, etc.). And the more I use it, the more the algorithm “learns” from me. While it will not type New Testament Greek, it is quite amazing!
Cynthia, what is nice to see is that you work hard and form very good arguments. Thank you for your efforts and I’d love to have a conversation or debate with you any time. You have a very good mind.
Wikepadia is talking about a major metro area that combines more than one County. Its not saying that Sugarland is in Harris. Its like Los Angeles-Long Beach- Anaheim, Anaheim is not in La county but a lot of reserach combines the counties of La-Orange together.
Guns were a factor in West Virginia’s changed in voting but also the coal industry. Democratics want more regulation and West Virginians think its less jobs.
You need to consider starting an e-mail list. It would take your site to its potential.
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George Washington considered himself a planter much along the lines of the Roman tradition of Cincinnatus. Early in the RomanRepublic , the Senate ruled Rome. In a time of war, land holders were called to come and form an army to defend Rome. In such a time of strife, a dictator was appointed and given temporary powers to rule until the end of the conflict. Cincinnatus was called to duty in 458 BC and successfully led the defense of Rome. When the conflict was over, he resigned his position and returned to his farm. This was the Roman tradition until around the time of Julius Caesar. Not exactly true since the last two centuries of the Republic were difficult with the political leadership and Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar shifted the Roman Republic away from the ideas of Cincinnatius. Learned about Cinncinnatius in 7th grade.
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Thank you very much. Just what I needed, as I was not able to go to liturgy today because of medical issues.
God bless you for posting this. Brought tears, hopefully of healing.
love in the Lord,
pelagiaeast
The Second Amendment, like the other nine in the Bill of Rights, empowers individuals to protect themselves against a tyrannical government, whether that government be foreign or domestic. Therefore, it recognizes the right of every citizen in good standing to keep and bear arms suitable for use in a militia, a fighting force of last resort. That means weapons suitable for a contemporary infantryman.
Therefore I propose the following:
1) Allow the private possession of any weapon a person can lift, move, deploy, and fire without human or mechanical help.
2) Allow unrestricted access to clips, magazines, and any other devices suitable to load ammunition into the weapons specified in #1.
3) Allow unrestricted access to ammunition suitable for the weapons and devices specified in #1 and #2 above.
4) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal taxes.
5) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal registration.
6) Exempt the items in #1, #2, and #3 from all local, state, and federal permit requirements.
What’s curious to me is how the gun-grabbers are all of a sudden become so pro-hunting. I know these people: they hate hunters and hunting, and practically every other aspect of rural Red-state America.
The Sixth Commandment, from http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7115
“Thou shalt not kill.” Ex. 20:13.
The commandment is actually “Thou shalt not murder”. All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. It’s poor scholarship like this that leads to the pitiful traditions that have infiltrated the Church.
I agree with Fr Blues that what he wrote about the commandment is poor scholarship!
Failure to protect your family, or any other innocent person is constructively violating the sixth commandment by your inaction. This does not mean that a Christian must own a gun, but he cannot be an absolute pacifist when it comes to protecting innocents. Killing is sometimes a nececary evil.
Except as Fr Webster has pointed out, killing can be a lesser good if the victim is an aggressor intent on harming innocents. It’s regrettable but only in the sense that most everything in the created order is regrettable because of the Fall.
Here’s an article on the morality of lethal force expressed in very practical terms. A good read.
An Interview with a Lethal Man: Peter and Helen Evans interview Massad Ayoob
On Wednesday, I was sitting on the porch reading and a block away I saw two police cars and an unmarked car (from which jumped two men with “Parole” vests) roll up on a guy standing on the corner. Weapons drawn they were yelling the customary, “Get on the ground! Show me your hands!” Ten minutes and they were gone with him and his handgun. He was a “parolee-at-large” who was seen at a little “bodega” two blocks away and he had a gun in his jacket.
On Thursday, two ex-cons with warrants were seen about six blocks from my house – one was reported to have a gun – and and they split up and ran when the police showed up. Two hours later, one of them was confronted by the police, refused to show his hands, reached into his pants, and was shot dead on the street.
Last night, my wife came back from walking the dog, yelling to me that our garage door was jacked open. Someone had cut the padlock off the door, forced the door off the track, and stole my bike & equipment, and a bunch of donated stuff she gives to children & families as a social worker for Children’s Hospital (e.g. a big box of new Van’s sneakers in children’s sizes, toys, etc.).
I have worked around these sort of individuals for years and heard enough consequences of “the Fall” to last me a good long while. I judge no one. However, my reaction was quite primal, and I all I could hear was the live version of Rage Against the Machine & Cyprus Hill How I Could Just Kill a Man, which, I might add, is not for the prudish, but it makes the point:
One chorus and it was done. Hyperbole. Violation is violation. Some punk-assed punk in your space and gone with your stuff. And what would you figure the likelihood of potentiated violence if I owned a handgun?
That’s your right. See, I really do believe in the Bill of Rights. I know some mighty fine people who don’t go to church. That’s their right as well.
I was making no comment as to the Bill of Rights or the law; in fact, the law is my delight (Ps. 118:24). Rights is rights, Mr. Michalopulos, but everything comes with a price. You cannot deny that the mere presence of a gun in the home is twelve times more likely to result in the injury or death of a household member or visitor than an intruder (Narang, P., et al. “Do guns provide safety? At what cost?” South Med J. 2010 Feb;103(2):151-3). An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine the week after the shootings in CT pointed out that the combined total of shooting victims in Oak Creek, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Newtown was 95, while the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011 showed an average of 88 murders by firearm per day in the US, and more than 200 serious firearm injuries.
Rage at a lost bike is fleeting. Pointing a firearm at another human being – regardless of the justifiable ethics of the action – is forever. I too believe in the Bill of Rights, and I exercise my right in my own way. I know some real rodents posing as human beings who go to church; one even had a handgun in an ankle-holster. That’s their right as well.
If that’s true, then why are there more killings in the US by knives, hammers, blunt objects, etc?
Mr. Michalopulos,
For the sake of argument – pardonez, accuracy – I would refer you to Table 20 of the FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2011: Murder, by State, Type of Weapon. Holy Cow! If you’re more interested than me, there is an Excel file available to download. Some highlights:
Now, I grant you that this includes shotguns, rifles, and other “unidentified” firearms, but with the exception of the great state of NY (where “pushing,” presumably into the path of a subway is considered a “non-firearm” form of murder), Americans kill with firearms nearly 3 to 1. And to think I specifically went to Philadelphia on July 4, 1976 for the Bicentennial (and somewhere in this video, seated behind President Gerald Ford, is Archbishop Kiprian (Borisevich) who gave an invocation), only to have Puerto Rican Separatists threaten to blow up the Liberty Bell. They wouldn’t try it today. Everybody in Philadelphia – save 12% – is carrying a gun.
A State like West Virginia who had voted Dem for a long time, sure didn’t like the ‘guns and religion’ comments made by our President. Needless, if I am not mistaken, they have voted red the last two Presidential elections.
They voted red in 2000 and 2004 as well.
It is not that I am so enthusiastic about hunting; it is that hunting is perhaps the only legitimate need for a gun by private citizens.
Fire away now. — I know you will.
The only legitimate need? I envy you, the police in your city must be awsome. Every year in this country, private citizens shoot more criminals in justified shootings than the police. Sadly, there is a whole lot of legitimate need for guns in the atheistic mess of a society.
Sasha, while I support the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment, it’s this type of attitude that makes me cringe. In the past 150 years there hasn’t been a single instance when an American citizen needed to take up arms against his government. I, like most Americans, believe in the right to bear arms, but I also believe that this doesn’t mean that every person should be allowed access to any kind of fire arm they can lift or fire.
Perhaps this is because the Second Amendment actually works …
Except the the Whiskey Rebellion, Shays Rebellion, the Labor Movement in the early 1900’s and that trifle of THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Other than that, no one has ever taken up arms against the government, you are correct.
I don’t know if the liberals hate them. Vermont is more rural than parts of Texas which is suburban and few horses or hunting areas In fact, there are rural Blue States, Vermont and Oregon and Maine off hand, Urban and Suburban Red States, Texas, Florida. Florida is a little purple on the presidential. In fact about 40 years ago Republicans did better in San Diego have rural areas left than Bluefield West Virginia lots of rural areas. Gun Control is not the only issue here. San Diego got a lot of immirgation while Bluefield didn’t. areas
Perhaps you’ve never driven across Texas. It’s almost entirely rural, with a couple spots of urbanization. Texas is larger than all New England combined (larger than England too, for that matter).
There are SOME adults in Texas, but the majority of Texans hold first place in the U.S. for school spirit.
Q.E.D.
Texas is 26 million how can that be call a rural state, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, El Paso are in the top 30 largest cities. In 2050 Texas could be 50 million people larger than maybe than California since its gaining population while California might lost 10 million people by 2050 being an expensive state. You can also drive miles and miles in California and there are small towns but you would not call California rural. Houston is a bigger urban area than Riverside, Orange County, San Diego County it only is smaller than Los Angeles. San Diego is number 2 largest county in California and Orange County is number 3 and Riverside number 4.
Speaking as a Texan, I would say, “You both are right.” There are five heavily-populated centers in Texas, and however many mid-sized cities. At the same time, however, Texas is so large that there are great expanses of land with only small towns or tiny map-dot communities. “Rural” is not a demeaning term, in case that is what some are thinking.
To give some perspective … California has 239 people per square mile; New Hampshire 140; Texas 97; Vermont 65 and Maine 39 … so New Hampshire is more urban than Texas is … but, Antonia, I will agree with you … Texas (and California for that matter) has many rural areas that are sparsely populated, while Vermont and New Hampshire have areas that are urban.
I don’t count states with 26 milion populations as rural. The new England states are small in size but have small towns. Does Vermont have a metro area of 4 million. Houston, El Paso, Dallas, San Antinio, and Austin are in the top 30 largest. Population density has little to do with being urban or rural. Counties that have under a million are not large urban/suburban areas. Texas is too large of a population to be called rural. It will be more than 30 million people in 2020 a size of a European Country.
Harris County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, which is the fifth largest metro area in the U.S.[1] As of the 2010 census, the county had a population of 4.1 million,[2] making it the most populous county in Texas and the third most populous county in the United States. Its county seat is Houston,[3] the largest city in Texas. It was founded in 1836.Dallas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (colloquially referred to as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex). As of the 2010 census, the county had an official population of 2,368,139[1] and is now the ninth most populous county in the United States. Dallas county was founded in 1846 and was named for George Mifflin Dallas, the 11th Vice President of the United States.
Its county seat is Dallas[2], which is also
See most people in Texas live in the large counties or counties next to them not the rural areas.
Just for perspective on the issue of counties vs. urban states. California has 58 counties of which only 9 have a population of more than one million. I would agree that counties with more than a million people should be counted as “urban”. However, California has 49 counties with less than one million population led by Alpine County with a total population under 1,800 … now that is very “rural”.
Sugarland, where I served for 3 years is not in Harris County. It is in Fort Bend County. Despite its cities, Texas is a very rural state with its own culture.
Sometimes I wonder about why I’m a little slower than many people. I can’t spell that good many times here its typos. As a kid I was diagnosted with ADHD or in the 1960’s it was just called hyperactvity. My father has normal intelligence but reads at a 6th grade level and he finished high school. I have difficulty keeping jobs since I’m slower at certain things.
Cynthia, You know a lot more than I do in some areas, and I always read your posts. Your comments are interesting even with the typos. Thinking outside the box is good. One of my favorite people in the world, and a great inspiration to me, is Temple Grandin. I hope you’ve read about her and watched the movie “Temple,” which is about her life and her great accomplishments.
Dear Sisters in Christ Cynthia and Jane,
I have spoken to Temple Grandin several times and one time, she shared some of her architectural plans for an animal handling facility with me. I felt very privileged to see them. She said she imagines herself as the animal being routed or managed in some way and tries to make that experience as good as possible for the animal, even as it is their last experience on this earth as they are led to be slaughtered. With every experience that she has, she doesn’t try to judge the experience as good or bad, but instead tries to see whether that experience is teaching her something. She told me she fell in a vat of some kind of chemical by mistake once and that she felt she felt fearless and clear after the experience and surmised that it might be related to some drug that might be good for her. Indeed, there was such a thing. She is always solving things for herself she thinks might be useful for others through introspection and empathy.
You can read about how she got into this field in her Emergence, Labelled Autistic book, her first writing, an autobiography. One of the things I like about her is that she is not afraid to be unique and uses her uniqueness in some of her inventions. My favorite invention of hers is the hug machine, a full body experience in a machine that you can purchase from her. Basically, it is a kind of table in which you can lay down in a way that feels comfortable to you and be higged, with precisely the kind of pressure you might want or need because you control that pressure yourself. At a demonstration of said machine, I’ll have to admit to being a bit of a hug hogette and having fifteen separate hugs, some lasting quite a while…Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine
WONDERFUL! Thank you!
I love and admire her as well.
I would suggest that the leap from ADHD, and some of the other difficulties you describe, directly to Termple Grandin is extreme and premature.
The vast majority of children with ADHD naturally resolve without any intervention beyond adolescence, but approximately 5% of those children remain ADHD as adults. Likewise, adults with ADHD are more likely to have familial (genetic) histories, and (undiagnosed) learning disabilities as well, and benefit from accurate diagnosis. There are new stimulant and non-stimulant medications for adults that, in conjunction with cognitive assistance, are very effective in improving attention, reading, spelling, etc. Unfortunately, testing of neurocognitive functioning (including learning disabilities) is usually expensive without insurance coverage. You should speak with your doctor.
As a side note, I started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is a speech-to-text dictation software package, using a headset & microphone. The technology is so good that I can dictate very technical case notes, reports, articles, etc. and eliminate nearly all the typing errors of dyslexia (missing words or phrases, doubled words, misspellings, etc.). And the more I use it, the more the algorithm “learns” from me. While it will not type New Testament Greek, it is quite amazing!
Cynthia, what is nice to see is that you work hard and form very good arguments. Thank you for your efforts and I’d love to have a conversation or debate with you any time. You have a very good mind.
Wikepadia is talking about a major metro area that combines more than one County. Its not saying that Sugarland is in Harris. Its like Los Angeles-Long Beach- Anaheim, Anaheim is not in La county but a lot of reserach combines the counties of La-Orange together.
Guns were a factor in West Virginia’s changed in voting but also the coal industry. Democratics want more regulation and West Virginians think its less jobs.
You need to consider starting an e-mail list. It would take your site to its potential.