john Arthur martinez

I know I have been remiss in keeping up my blog, that's because I have been busy with travels and family. I also am stagnant because I was wanting to give this young man a rave review. We have been to see him twice lately and will continue to visit his shows when ever he is withing driving distance.

When we first discovered jAm, I blogged about him here. Now this should not be taken lightly! I, after all, am the one that discovered Willie Nelson! Yes. Back in the mid seventies I saw him on some obscure late night TV show called Austin City Limits. I told all my friends that they were going to have to see this guy. Sure enough. Willie's career sky rocketed! So I am telling you now, this guy is going places.

I was going to blog about his talent but in researching I find that everyone is impressed already with his talent. Not only is his writing technically sound, his voice is pleasing to the ear.
Dan Schneider on john Arthur Martinez
If you have an iPhone you need this app.
Of course, there is his web site where you can sample his music and find links to his social sites. A great place to connect and find more on this great artist.

So there is nothing more I can add about his musical talents but there is much more to the man. (Darn, that sounds like a line from one of his songs, Man Who Holds the Bow)
He starts his day by waking his wife to her favorite cup of coffee. If he has some free time he might play a little tennis. Afternoons are for his family, sorry, no promos when they need him. His work could start in San Antonio for a charity and end in Dallas for a radio interview. He is that hard working. Just try to follow his tweets.
Same goes for the guys he works with.
The point is, these are not just "bar room buddies". These are the people you would invite into your home. People you respect for their hard work, talent, morality, and family ethic.

If you are in Texas, you have to see one of their shows. If you are not, pick up one of jAm's new cds.
You won't be sorry.

Obama Calls Kanye a Jackass

I may not agree with a lot of the things that Obama has been doing but I must say that he does have his endearing moments.

To hear him comment on on something like the MTV Awards makes him more like a real person. 

Reporter: Were your girls as mad as mine were that Kanye gave Taylor Swift the Joe Wilson treatment?
Barack Obama: I thought that was really inappropriate. You know I mean it’s like she’s getting an award what are you butting in? I hear you, I agree with you.
Reporter: Does that count as the first question?
Barack Obama: The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she’s getting her award, what is he doing up there? He’s a jackass. No all this stuff…I’m assuming all this stuff…where’s the pool? Come on guys cut the President some slack I got a lot of other stuff on my plate. ‘Cause I remember last time there was the fly thing that was the highlight…
Report: That worked out well for you, you were a ninja.
Barack Obama: Not really, except PITA.
Reporter: You got the chopsticks this time?
Barack Obama: Yeah right.

Jackass? JACKASS!!!!
Yeah, he said jackass.
Well, finally something we can agree on.

Sex With Farm Animals Always Leads to an unStable Relationship

Conway, South Carolina... Rodell Vereen, 50, has had his love affair with Sugar put on hold after being caught and held at gun point by the horse's owner, Barbara Kenley.
This is the second time Vareen has been charged with having sex with his darling at the Lazy B Stables. Last year he was sentenced to three years probation for buggery, ordered to undergo mental evaluation, and prohibited from going near the stables. It looks like his unwillingness to give up on his romance will now find him serving his three years behind bars.
On Monday night, Kenley said she went to check on the horses and saw an unknown vehicle parked near her property.

In 20 years I've never had a problem like this,'' Kenley said. ``I never knew people did such a thing.

Kenley found Vereen behind a barn where the horses are kept and pointed a shotgun at him. Kenley called police on her cell phone and waited for officers to arrive.
Bail for Vereen is set at $30,000. He was being held Wednesday at J. Reuben Long Detention Center.
Sugar could not be reached for comment but friends inform us that she just never could say "neigh."

Preceeded in Death by Mary Jo Kopechne - Ted Kennedy

It was July, 18, 1969. Ted Kennedy was having a party with some friends in Chappaquidick, Mass. Six young, "Boiler Room Girls" and six gentlemen. It seems the wives were never invited to this party.

According to his later testimony, Ted Kennedy chose to not drink that night, and when Mary Jo Kopechne (a 28-year-old political worker) said "that she was desirous of leaving, if I would be kind enough to drop her back at her hotel". Ted, although his driver was present at the party, took the keys from him and offered to drive her. Kopechne told no one that she was leaving with Kennedy, and left her purse and hotel key at the party.

Even though Ted Kennedy hadn't had a drop of alcohol, he became lost. Kennedy's 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 was spotted where he pulled off on a cemetery road and a police officer approached the car to ask if needed help. But Kennedy chose to speed away from the officer in a cloud of dust.

Kennedy made a wrong turn onto Dike Road, an unlit dirt road that led to Dike Bridge. Dike Road was unpaved, but Kennedy, driving at "approximately twenty miles an hour", took "no particular notice" of this fact, and did not realize that he was no longer headed towards the ferry landing. -- until he plunged off the side of Dike Bridge. The car sunk in the water, and Ted swam to shore.

He was tired, so he rested about fifteen minets and walked back to the party. Kennedy denied seeing any house with a light on during his journey back to Lawrence Cottage. His route back to the cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help; however, he did not do so.

He returned to the scene of the accident with his cousin and a friend that later became the Attorney General, with the hope of rescuing Mary Jo. Kennedy said he was worried for the others safety, so he didn't bother telling them about Mary Jo Kopechne. The guys tried to free her body from the car for a while, his friends drove him to the ferry where he swam to the other side and went back to his hotel room.

"I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room ... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."

Kennedy complained at 2:55 am to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party. By 7:30 am the next morning he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss. At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he hadn't reported the accident.

Earlier that morning, two amateur fishermen had seen the overturned car in the water and notified the inhabitants of the nearest cottage to the pond, who called the authorities at around 8:20 am. A diver was sent down and discovered Kopechne's body at around 8:45 am. The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that

Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.

When Kennedy, still at the pay phone by the ferry crossing where he was calling friends, saw that the body had been discovered, he crossed back to Edgartown and went to the police station; Gargan simultaneously went to the hotel where the Boiler Room Girls were staying to inform them about the incident.

Rest in Peace, Ted.

Wal-Mart Baby Slapper in Aisle 3

Roger Stephens, 61, was just having a routine shopping experience until a two year old ruined it by screaming.
Stephens politely ask the mother, Sonya Mathews, to

"shut that kid up or I will shut her up for you,"

according to the police report.

A few moments later, in another aisle, Stephens grabbed the 2-year-old and slapped her across the face four or five times,
Stephens then told Mathews, “See, I told you I would shut her up,” according to the report.

Mathews was detained by a bystander until police arrived. When questioned, the 61-year-old man explained that while he had indeed slapped a strange baby across the face, he apologized to her mother afterward. Although he was ever so polite, he was arrested anyway for felony cruelty to children.

Right to Carry Challenged by 20/20

Seems the networks are looking for ratings again.
Some of you may remember when NBC's Dateline reported on General Motors trucks "blowing up" in a wreck. Dateline showed footage of their test. It was later found that they had planted explosives in the trucks. All this to prove the conclusion that the trucks were unsafe.
Now ABC has come up with another test. Taking a hard line against our rights to bear arms, 20/20 claims that an armed citizen would be ineffective against a mass killers armed attack. Not only are they implying that we should not have rights to own firearms, they are claiming that we are too incompetent to protect ourselves.

Here is the set up:
They take college student and teach them how to fire a gun. They take each student and place them in the front-center chair of a simulated class room with other students and a teacher.
At some point a professional police instructor barges into the room and fires once at the teacher then at the front-center student.
If the student is able to get his gun out from his holster and from under his shirt and make a direct kill shot... the student wins.
If the professional gunman can get in both hits whether they are kills or not... mass murderer wins.
Of course there was no training on HOW to carry the weapon. Ill fitting holsters under baggy clothing does not fare well in a showdown.
Even as one student gets a hit, we are told that the shot to the leg was ineffective and the perpetrator was able to deliver a deadly shot to the chest. Sure! if it is just a damn paint gun. Let me take a whack with my .44 and see if he can still get a shot off after a little leg wound.
They really try to pass this off as a real world experiment. If one of the students were armed in this scenario, the armed student would not always be sitting in the front center of the class and the assailant would not know where his target would be. Although the attacker may be skilled, anyone that had experience in carrying a personal protection firearm would have, at some point, practiced and know the best way to have his weapon accessible.
Even after one girl fought it out and hit the intruder in the shoulder, it was pointed out that she came "within inches of hitting her fellow students." No mention that she had just stopped a crazed killer. All of the commentary seemed biased in every test. But then, they were out to "prove" that a professional gunman was no match for an untrained college student.
In April, a CNN poll showed that only 39% of the people surveyed wanted stricter laws - down from 50% in 2000.
And a poll sponsored by no less than ABC news found that 61% favored strong enforcement of existing laws vs 27% who want stricter laws.

Perez Hilton Takes Beating for Straight Bashing

Perez is the gay guy that discovered the nuances of Microsoft Paint and started a blog about celebrities. He then started billing himself as a "Gossip Blogger" but all he seems to do is slander everyone that does not make nice with him. His favorite is to post a picture of the celebrity with crude and vulgar text across it. He is also fixated on another sexual perversion in his illustrations. He eludes that the person in the image has just had messy sex. His trade mark is the alterations are very crudely done with white Paint. Please let your imagination run as wild as it likes on this or check out his site if you have the stomach for such things.

He is best know for three things; being a flaming gay, insisting others are gay, and being as obnoxious as he can about being gay.
He wants to proclaim gay rights but is quick to use obscenities to describe anyone that is not of that particular sexual persuasion.

Can you imagine one of his buddies being little child star, Miley Cyrus? If I was her daddy and caught her twitting to this low life pervert, I would rip the number pads off her iPhone.

"You’re a faggot, will.i.am! You’re not a f—ing artist"!

You know, Wii.i.am, the artist picked by Micheal Jackson for a new album.

So he is busy publicly slurring a well known singer, calling him a faggot, when fist started flying.
One little tap and he runs to his hotel room and gets on his cell phone. To call the police? No. To Tweet about it. He actually ask people on Twitter to send the cops because he was bleeding!

Now the public is beginning to turn against him and say he had it coming. Well, that's not going to stop him from suing. Poor guy has to make money someway. Surely not with talent.

I think a group of gays should get together and bash this guy! He is hiding behind his sexuality to be the biggest asshole since Rush Limbaugh.

Why would we compare Lincoln to King?

Granted... both were great men but we see more and more reference to Lincoln as a friend of the black man. Do we really need to credit a white man with the strides that the black man has gained through the years? No! I believe it was great black men that we have to thank. Fredrick Douglas maybe. Certainly not Lincoln.
It was Fredrick Douglas that gave Lincoln's Emancipation creditability with the black slaves at the time. Other wise it would have just been another political move to win favor for an unpopular war. Does "weapons of mass destruction" ring a bell?

Abolitionists were considered a rouge movement at the time. Lincoln sent his troops to put down abolitionist before the war. And guess who he sent to do this? Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Lincoln had confirmed that the War had nothing to do with slavery.

After the bloody battle of Antietam, support for the War was at a low and there was pressure to end it. Lincoln was a great politician and ceased upon the anti-slavery movement to gain support.

From a British newspaper analyst:

Lincoln, as a result of Antietam, converted the war to a higher plane, again the master politician. He announces the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, it doesn’t free a single slave in revolt, frees only as a war measure and only frees a slaves in states where the Confederacy is in control.

and the same after the War.

...and certainly as many people today do not realize, that the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to get them their freedom.

So my question is: Does so much racism still exist today that we have to give credit to a white man for the successes of the back race?
Don't get me wrong. Lincoln was a great man and tried hard to bring our nation together, but to him slavery was a political tool not a moral aptitude.
This is evident in his plan for the emancipated slaves. He wanted to send them back to Africa and the Republican plan for reconstruction was non existent.

There are too many real black heroes to waste claims that Lincoln freed the slaves.
I think that Obama's admiration of the man is based solely on Lincoln's endeavor to bring the people of the nation together than on what he did to end slavery.

Obama referenced the 1860 Inaugural Address, in which Lincoln dramatically called on a deeply divided nation to choose peace instead of civil war.

Though civil war does not threaten the nation Obama has been elected to lead, it is nontheless deeply divided. Indeed, partisanship has stalled the political process in recent years.

Will Obama prove to be a post-partisan figure, capable of bringing Democrats and Republicans together, within his cabinet and Congress? Of course, only time will tell.