Charity Work Is So Rewarding It's Almost Selfish To Be So Privileged

The last four years working for NGO's-charities specializing in development work (a hand up rather than a hand out) has been the most rewarding of my life. After over two years with World Vision I have been with the Leprosy Mission (over 5 million affected with this disease in some fashion across the world) to which, being a smaller NGO I have been able to add some value from a lifetimes experience. Privileged

The concept of working with local ethnic communities to assist them to assist their countries of origin whilst being integrated into the local community through charity work has had some considerable measure of success. It has been my hugely enjoyable experience to attend numerous ethnic community cultural celebrations/National days etc where the hospitality has been unforgettable.

The media, both ethnic and English language, report on this from time to time-here is a recent example.

Manning an information stand at The Chinese New Year Function

With a Nepalese community leader at their National Day Function

That Was Quick! "Bachman's Rise And Fall" Advise Beltway's Cohn & Clift

In a new column from Washington insiders Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift they advise that Michele Bachman's presidential campaign, of just a few days duration, has been sent to the dustbin of history .


The Beltway media have not even waited for Bachman to drop off in the polls before announcing her political demise, like other media meteors, e.g. Trump and Cain who burned brightly, assisted by a press rapacious for readers. 


Cohn and Clift have got stuck straight into her, discovering Bachman's numerous wild past statements, her current gaffes, and the baggage her husband brings-none of which was apparent to the media who announced her, after one debate, as the GOP's new star, the eclipser of Palin and the main challenger to their anointed Romney.


They now see Bachman in a new light which, since in a recent poll she was within the margin of error of Romney, is not in the least surprising-to whit:


"Bachmann performed well in a debate in New Hampshire earlier this month, but she has a history of making off-the-wall comments that in ordinary times would disqualify her from being seen as a serious contender for the presidency. But these are not ordinary times, and Bachmann's spirited style and often willful disregard for facts plays well with tea party Republicans even as more traditional Republicans fret that her candidacy could be a train wreck for the party.


There have also been questions raised about her husband's counseling business which receives substantial payments from Medicaid, another big-government program Bachmann loves to lambast. Hypocrisy is not new in politics, but Bachmann is taking it to new heights, and if her rise to prominence continues unimpeded, the tea party may be following her over a cliff."




All this media nonsense, the promoting and bringing down of candidates, the ludicrous polls, is all just  dust and dross-nothing will be settled until Palin declares if she is running or if she is not running then which candidate she will endorse.

Palin Blitzes 6000 Vote Poll Once Again With Highest Result Yet

The July 4th Hot Air poll is in and Palin goes from strength to strength. Amongst  over 6000 votes cast Palin receives her highest total yet 36.94% with the much media vaunted Bachman a distant second at 19.95%


The site does its best to have a "worry" for Palin with her leading Bachman in a head to head by 4 points but if Palin actually declares I can't imagine there would by any problems from that quarter.


Online polls can be rubbish but this one-which allows only one vote per person seems to have some degree of validity-especially with such a high vote count.

This Site Averaging Over 4000 Hits a Day

Yes, this site-"The Other McCain" is getting more than 4000 hits a day but is approaching the, astonishing, 7 million mark for total hits. Even more astonishing is the fact that the blog has been going only since 2008.


However, a short number of visits to the site, run by, as they quite rightly advise, Stacy "because he's cool like that McCain and his "sidekick "because he's cool like that too" Smitty, will very quickly advise the reader (and viewer for reasons explained shortly) why the site is so popular.


It is not primarily because of, I believe, the particular political stance of the site, which is strongly conservative, any number of sites can deliver that message, but it is a combination of, in no particular order:


Hard hitting on the ground investigative journalism, an intense patriotism, a clear capacity to not suffer fools gladly, a fearless capacity to call a spade a spade, an intense anti-hypocritical attitude (especially where such creatures as radical feminism lurk) and a seemingly endless number of similar traits which would be too exhaustive on the reader to describe.


Again, if that were the sum of "The Other McCain" the intensity might go some way towards providing an explanation of the blog's success but, whilst it might not be matched in the sheer volume of the intensity traits by other blogs, many would share a considerable number of them.


What makes the blog the near unique success is the counterpoint to the intensity, which is a wonder joie de vivre, a light-heartedness, a "Brighton Beach postcard" sauciness which can, on occasion, and thankfully, wander into full blown celebration of the female form. 


This latter alone stands in stark contrast to the seeming Presbyterianism of the intensity factor, but is a delightful  explanation of one aspect the blog's popularity which McCain describes, with a wink as "how to get a million hits on your blog." 


That this advice may not work for all, as the X factor may be missing is proven by my half-hearted forays into such territory which, sadly, produced nothing of a similar volume, perhaps readers can tell when ones heart is not in it.


To me, apart from the: Page Three" girls, the contrasting intensity, the patriotism, the real key is that no matter how seemingly vitriolic, how intensely personal an attack article may be, the sheer righteous vehemence has an admixture of a grain of salt, where it has entered from the surrounding medium, that even the recipient of the barb might find it to be coated with salt, not vitriol.


Long may Stacy and Smitty reign, and rain down on enemies left and center.

"The Power Of Palin" Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Jack Kelly "Her Critics Have Shot Their Bolt"

Columnist Jack Kelly, writing in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette lays it on the line with a brilliant analysis of,  as he puts it "the power of Palin"  where he sets out that, where she is concerned, "convention wisdom" has it all wrong. 

He demolishes the arguments against her candidacy "she has left it too late, doesn't have any organization, has done no fundraising and etc." Clearly, as he points out, none of these so called arguments hold water, and are in no way any sort of impediment to her announcing a campaign run.

Another, highly significant point he makes , is that her critics, especially after the 24,000 emails fiasco, have shot their bolt in respect of possible criticism against her, whereas, as I also set out previously, the likes of e.g. Michele Bachman are going to be hit with a whirlwind of slime the likes of which she has never encountered. Whether she and her campaign can stand up to the for a year remains to be seen. But with Palin, we know she has stood up to the worst campaign of vilification ever mounted and not only is still standing, but standing strong.

Here are some of Kelly's main points:

"According to the conventional wisdom, it may be too late for her to run. Ms. Palin's done no fundraising, hasn't built a campaign team. Republicans who supported her are drifting to active campaigns, chiefly that of Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

The conventional wisdom is more conventional than wise. Candidates start early to build name recognition and need a campaign organization to get supporters to the polls.
Sarah Palin has 3.2 million followers on Facebook -- about 800,000 more than all the declared GOP candidates combined. Palinistas tend to be the sort who would crawl over ground glass to vote for her. She has less need of a get-out-the-vote operation than any political figure in modern times.

The Republican National Committee's new rules favor late entrants. There will be more delegates in 2012 than ever before. A higher proportion will come from heavily Republican states. All but a handful will be selected after March 1. In the four February contests, 129 delegates are at stake -- 23 fewer than in Texas alone.

Delegates in the early states must be selected by proportional representation, the RNC says. So whoever wins these contests probably will wind up with fewer than half. After March 1, delegates may be selected on a winner-take-all basis.

The early contests are unlikely to produce a clear frontrunner, but will winnow the field. This is most important for debates. It's stretching the term when seven or eight candidates are on stage. Cut the field to three or four, and debates have real meaning.

Debates will matter more in 2012 than ever before -- especially for Sarah Palin. Thanks to nonstop denigration from the news media and Hollywood celebrities, she polls worse against President Barack Obama than any other GOP candidate. A CBS poll June 8 indicated 54 percent of Republicans don't want her to run.

A new documentary, "The Undefeated," opens with a montage of vicious things celebrities have said about Ms. Palin. Viewers at the premier in Pella, Iowa, Tuesday were shocked.
But efforts to portray Ms. Palin as a shrill, stupid snowbilly backfired on the journalists who sought the release of 24,000 emails from her time as Alaska governor.

Liberals hope their sliming of her will keep Ms. Palin from running. But it may be the most important reason why she should.

Prominent journalists already are trying to do to Ms. Bachmann what they did to Ms. Palin in 2008.
Many "mainstream" journalists have abandoned all pretense of fairness, but still expect to be treated as if they were honest brokers. Most Republicans oblige them. Sarah Palin doesn't. She uses social media to bypass news media "gatekeepers." That's one reason so many journalists hate her. They seethe even more because Ms. Palin uses their obsession with her to make them look ridiculous, as she did during her bus vacation in the Northeast last month.


But her critics have shot their bolt where Sarah Palin is concerned. They've already said every bad thing they could say about her.
"The Undefeated," strives to set the record straight. The people in Pella who saw it liked it very much. But most Americans won't see it.
Which is why debates will be so important if Ms. Palin runs. In them, she'll either conform to the caricature of her -- or demolish it.

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