Ferri Tales

Ben Fields , a white sheriff’s deputy in South Carolina, was fired after he threw a black female student across a Spring Valley school district classroom floor because the student wouldn’t hand over her phone. Another student recorded the attack on his cell phone. Fields was fired two days after the incident, and Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said, “He picked a student up, and he threw the student across the room; that is not a proper technique.... Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we’re taking the responsibility for that.” No charges have been filed against Fields. To paraphrase the Bible, assholes will always be with us. Thanks to modern cell phones that are everywhere, we can now readily identify who they are. Ben Fields qualifies for this new Scarlet Letter , and in his case, the “A” stands for something Hester Prynne probably knew her accusers to be. JLF

[This is my reply to a letter-to-the-editor in a local newspaper, The Daily Review , in Towanda, PA] After I read Jeff Deutschle's letter, " Does marriage really matter? ," ( The Daily Review , Sept. 3, 2015), I checked the date to see if a temporal anomaly had transported be back to the 1950s. Nope -- I was still in the 2nd decade of the 21st century. Deutschle started by citing a study, " The Marriage Effect: Money or Parenting? ," and claimed that, "children raised by married parents typically do better in life on almost every available economic and social measure." This seems like a reasonable conclusion because of potentially increased income and parental engagement, and the sharing of responsibilities between parents. Then Deutschle regresses back to the 1950s with, "Married parents have gender specific roles." I was expecting him to also cite " The Good Wife's Guide " from a 1955 Housekeeping Monthly that advises ...

As amazing as it sounds, I found the friend that Craig Pierce talked to in his letter to the editor of June 27, 2014. I asked Craig’s friend if he really thought that America was burning and he said that he did because that’s what Fox “News” told him to think. I told him that Fox “News” wasn’t a real news program. I asked him to stop watching it for a while and to read or watch some reliable news sources, and suggested anything but Fox. Being a reasonable fellow, Craig’s friend said that he would and get back to me as soon as he could. In a few days, we talked again and he said that he couldn’t believe how biased Fox “News” is, and was shocked to find out what was actually happening outside of the GOP and Fox information bubble. He told me of several epiphanies after realizing what was really happening in the country and the world. - He couldn’t believe how much money the GOP is wasting on investigating the IRS non-scandal, and how Darrel Issa is grandstanding. And he was dismay...

Recently after listening to yet more blatant lies from Fox “News” and Republican Congressmen, my wife asked me, “Why do they do that? Why do they say things that are so easily shown to be false?” Easy question, I told her, “Because it works.” I borrowed Duane Campbell’s words from his letter of May 29 to illustrate the Republican tactic of asking rhetorical questions as a pointless attempt to make a point. In his letter, he asks multiple questions from the GOP playbook on Benghazi, not seeking answers, but merely to sound serious. Benghazi has been thoroughly investigated and the conclusions from multiple investigations over 20 months were that there was no cover-up or conspiracy. To show that Campbell was not looking for answers, in the on-line comments section of the Review’s letters section, answers to Campbell’s questions were thoughtfully and respectfully presented by a writer who goes by “subscriber2”. Campbell’s on-line reply was “I love to engage on issues, and I almost...

I offer my sincere condolences to those who believe that there is an ongoing cover-up of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya in which 4 Americans were killed. They assume that the recent vote on May 8 by the House to establish yet another investigation into the Benghazi attack and that the incessant droning about Benghazi cover-ups on Fox “News” actually means that a conspiracy or cover-up exists. Since the attack and over a period of 20 months -- after 13 hearings, 50 briefings, 25 transcribed interviews, 8 issued subpoenas, more than 25,000 pages of documents, 6 congressional reports, a postmortem by the NY Times, and a detailed analysis by the journalist Michael Hirsh for Politico magazine -- no evidence of a conspiracy or cover-up has been found. The House’s call for more hearings began after an email surfaced showing that Obama administration officials were concerned about the president’s image in the days after the attack. Of course, there were no c...

The 63rd annual National Day of Prayer was held on May 1, 2014, and was locally observed in front of the Bradford County Courthouse in Towanda, PA. As in the past, prayers were offered for “guidance, protection, and strength,” according to the coordinator Nancy Schrader. She also stated in the April 26 Daily Review that, “The Pilgrims at Plymouth relied on prayer during their first and darkest winter. Our founding fathers [sic] also called for prayer during the Constitutional Convention,” and that “... this annual observance will bring Christians of many persuasions together.” Fortunately, the Pilgrims’ prayers were answered because only slightly over half of them didn’t starve or freeze to death during that first brutal winter. Only through divine guidance did our Founding Fathers get most of the Constitution right, leaving out some minor items like ruling that slavery is immoral, or that women should be able to vote. Sadly though, because the event will only "bring Christia...

Cliven Bundy, recently lionized in the Towanda Daily Review letters to the editor by Craig Pierce (4/18/14) and Sarah Scholl (4/22/14) , is a Nevada cattle rancher who has had a 2 decade battle with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over unpaid fees in excess of a million dollars for grazing his cattle on federal pasture lands. Bundy has lost multiple court case regarding his grazing claims. Bundy is deluded because he claims that he follows all Nevada state laws, but doesn’t “recognize the United States government as even existing.” Yet, the Nevada state constitution, framed during the Civil War, includes the Paramount Allegiance clause granting that the federal government may use armed force to compel obedience to its laws. His proclivity of waving a large United States flag while on horseback is also at odds with his non-recognition of the U.S. government. Bundy is a thief because he refuses to pay grazing fees that are 3% of what they are on private land, and accordi...

Senator Pat Toomey (PA, Republican) is probably too busy to answer Victor Lawson's open letter to him in the Towanda Daily Review on March 6, 2014 about President Obama ripping the U.S. Constitution to shreds. Mr. Lawson wrote that he doesn't want a form letter, so here is how I think Mr. Toomey would reply. Dear Mr. Lawson: If Mr. Obama were actually violating the Constitution, we would have an impeachable offence and would act. However, keep in mind that the "Obama is ripping the Constitution to shreds" line is only empty rhetoric from the GOP propaganda arm, Fox News. It keeps our base riled up and donations coming in. In other areas, the secret GOP Contrivance Committee has been aggressively trying to fabricate evidence for the IRS and Benghazi scandals, but the Democrats keep providing solid evidence to thwart our efforts, in spite of the heroic theatrics by Representative Darrell Issa. Our secret GOP Outrage Department will continue to be outrag...

Our planet orbits the Sun as it has for the past several billion years. The Earth's axis of revolution is currently tilted from its orbital plane by about 24 degrees from perpendicular. This causes the seasons, and also the drift throughout the year in the height above the horizon of the Sun's arc across the sky as it appears to move from sunrise to sunset. The winter solstice occurs in the northern hemisphere when this arc is at its lowest, resulting in the shortest day and longest night of the year, and usually occurs on December 21st or 22nd. For the next 6 months, this arc will rise. Earth’s orbit is an ellipse with the closest point to the Sun, perihelion, occurring sometime between January 2nd to the 5th. It is winter because the axial tilt of the northern hemisphere away from the Sun more than compensates for the approximately 6% more solar influx than at aphelion, the farthest point. Note, though, that it is summer in the southern hemisphere at perihelion. Life on Ear...

I am always amazed at how little actual product information is included in marketing and advertising material. As a general principle, I avoid as much advertising as possible because most, if not all of it, contains so little usable information, and I manually mute all commercial advertisements whenever I watch television. This is particularly great prior to any elections. Today's product is the Perfect Choice HD hearing aid device. The advertisement was in the AmericanProfile magazine section of our local Sunday newspaper on Dec. 29, 2013. There is no price, address, or URL, but there is a phone number with a promotional code to indicate somehow that this is an exclusive offer to a select few. A Google search will bring up multiple hits if you're interested. A picture of the product is below: It looks just like a hearing aid, however the ad copy disagrees as follows: " Perfect Choice HD is NOT a hearing aid. It is a  Personal  Sound Amplification Product (...