Jump to content

Menu

Donna A.

Members
  • Posts

    3,153
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by Donna A.

  1. Thank you for this. So what DO you do (or have done) for his spelling? I'm trying to figure out how to proceed with my 12yo who's become very aware of the fact that she's behind her same- or near-same age peers in several areas.
  2. Look, go back and re-read my post. I don't appreciate your accusation that I'm blaming a child for his own death. I didn't post the info about the news segment to argue for or against what happened in Rice's case. I told you that. I also told you that I hadn't even heard of it until this thread, and I still don't know when the incident even happened, and I did not watch the video. I did, however, tell you that I only heard the news segment in passing a few (or several) days ago. I didn't mark it on the calendar so I don't know what day it was; it was in passing. I did say it was very recent..... so umm, maybe the reason it "isn't working" as you put it, is because it's something they've just started working on. I didn't bring up the news segment about toy guns being a problem to make ANY claim about whether Rice caused his own death or not. I did not comment on that at ALL. I brought up the news segment in direct response to your cynicism about whether people can recognize toy guns or not. And I stated that it was general. I never said that Tamir was part of a gang or a group, and neither did anyone else, as far as I know. I said NONE of what you're accusing me of there. Nor was I "reacting" to anything. I was merely providing info about a news segment I'd heard. End of story. In your efforts to "prove" racism in every single post that might actually disprove racism in each (or any) of the individual events y'all have discussed here, you are twisting people's words. That's how lies get spread and people are falsely accused of things they are not guilty of. I made sure to include disclaimers in my post about the news segments precisely for this reason...... so that you and others can't come back and try to claim that I'm a racist because I mention a news segment about toy guns being a problem for the police force in gangs and other groups where kids are using them. I mentioned it simply as an awareness point.... period. NOW I'm reacting to something because I don't appreciate having my words twisted in an effort to make into a racist. Mrs. Mungo never did answer me earlier in the thread when I asked her directly if she was calling me a racist. So I'll ask you -- Are you calling me a racist?
  3. Actually, police ARE having a hard time with distinguishing such real-looking toy guns from the real thing... particularly from a distance. I just heard a segment about it on the news a few or several days ago. I can't tell you which channel or exactly what day it was.... I heard them discussing it as I was getting my coffee or something. I had never heard of the Rice case until this thread (I have not watched the video and don't even know when it happened), so I don't mention this specifically in relation to the Rice case, but in general. I remember the news segment showing pictures of the toy guns in question, and WHY they're so hard to tell apart. They also mentioned something about some gangs or groups of kids that use these real-looking toy guns. (They mentioned air soft and also a BB type gun.) They were talking about what a problem is precisely because they don't want innocent kids getting shot. So um, yeah, it IS a problem, evidently. And it's a problem of which they're aware, and for which they're trying to find a solution.
  4. I never commented on Brown's reaching into his waistband. I was talking about Brown's pinning Wilson in his vehicle, attacking him while pinned in the vehicle, and trying to get the gun from him. THAT is when the gun came into play in this incident. Wilson never had his gun out of his holster until that encounter. On the second paragraph, if you're still relying on the multiple, conflicting testimonies of so-called eyewitnesses as your "evidence", then you're choosing to ignore the physical evidence which takes many different factors into account. (Not sure if you know anything about forensics.....) When you have Witness A say one thing, and Witness B say another, and Witness B even contradicts himself every time he tells the story as many witnesses did in this case, you have to rely on the physical evidence to decide which witness to believe. That's how it works.
  5. The person who quoted Wilson just above seems to have made the contradiction by quoting him, while arguing with me about whether Wilson was justified in feeling needed a gun or not. Or at least that's how I took her post. Maybe I'm wrong. I still don't get why you have a problem with him ACTUALLY feeling like he needed to use a gun, though. You claim that we're treating him like a "helpless child" while citing size and strength differences, aggression on the part of the attacker, training or lack thereof, etc., and you seem to have a problem with that. And yet, you acknowledge that Wilson himself said he FELT like a child at the time of the attack. BOTH justify his need to use a gun. So who are you arguing with? Those of us who are willing to consider all the various factors that could have played a part, or Wilson? I'm confused.
  6. My 16yo just got a guitar for her birthday in October, and she got this same curriculum to use with it. I obviously can't share long term results yet, but so far she's enjoying it and has started playing some basic, simple songs. She's even working on a couple of simple duets with her sister on the piano. I didn't know about the live lessons on Tues. nights! I'll have to mention that to dd. ETA: There's a note on the "How to Use This Course" page that says it is likely to take a full year to get through all of these sessions. BUT... "You will become a guitar player long before you actually finish this course. You will be playing your first songs within a few weeks.".
  7. Wilson stating that he FELT like a five-year-old while being attacked by Brown is not the same thing as what I was responding to. I responded to the accusation that WE are referring to Wilson as if he's a child. "...is being talked about as some sort of helpless child." You don't get to have it both ways.... use Wilson's own words to imply that he was a helpless child, while using he and Brown's similar physical size to refute his need to use a gun to defend himself. Either he felt like a helpless child and needed to use the gun, or he didn't. Which one is it?
  8. Oh, for crying out loud. You don't believe him because he "says the exact things he needs to say to justify the shooting"? They couldn't POSSIBLY be true??? Especially when the evidence backs up what he said.... or at least there was no evidence to contradict it? Who says Wilson wasn't injured by the first two punches. Or did you mean he wasn't injured badly enough in your opinion to feel like he should've been afraid? Just how badly must one be hurt to feel afraid?
  9. No one said he was a "helpless child". (OTOH, how often has Brown been referred to as a "child" in these discussions? Where I live, an 18yo is an adult. Especially at 6' plus and nearly 300 lbs. and is obviously grown up enough to rob a store, be physically aggressive toward other human beings who are questioning his actions (don't forget the store clerk), challenge a police officer face-to-face, and try to take his gun. Wilson did NOT "start an aggressive encounter with Brown". Why do you ignore the fact that Brown was in the middle of the road blocking traffic? Wilson don't know initially that the guy blocking the road was the culprit in the robbery call he was responding to.... until immediately after he told Brown to get out of the road and then looked back at him. Brown fit the description. It was his JOB to try to stop Brown from walking off after at that point. If he hadn't, then he'd be accused of not doing his job for that, either! You are also completely ignoring the discussion on how much training and shooting practice Wilson may or may not have had as a small town police officer, the logistical positioning of Wilson vs. Brown, and many other factors. You just want to hang onto the fact that these men were about the same size..... but size alone doesn't tell the whole story. You also didn't answer my question: Do you think Wilson should've just sat there and let Brown take the gun? I repeat:
  10. I completely agree with this. My dad was about the size of Wilson. My bio mom's husband is about the size as Brown. Both are/were obviously big guys.... both are/were strong. I was afraid of them both, especially when they were angry because they resorted to physical violence. I've been hit by both. BUT..... If my dad (the "smaller" of the two) weren't such a hard-working man with daily physical labor on a farm, it's very likely that he wouldn't have been nearly as intimidating. He HAD to be a hard-working man with daily physical labor to be as strong as the other guy. The other guy didn't do all that much physical labor (some, but not at all like my dad who ran a farm), but he was strong just because of his sheer SIZE.... including bigger HANDS He was also much *fatter* than my dad, who really wasn't fat at all, but fat on a tall person isn't as big of a hindrance as it is on a shorter person because it has somewhere to go. (Same is true with pregnant women: one who is tall carries her babies differently than one who is short or has a short torso, or at least doesn't *look* as big as the shorter one.) So the fact that both Wilson and Brown were about the same height, and there was "only" 80-90 lbs difference is not the final determinant on whether one had the advantage or not. Eighty or ninety pounds CAN make a lot of difference, depending on several factors.
  11. He was a police officer. Of course he had a gun. And if I was a bettin' woman, I'd bet that IF Brown had had a gun, Wilson would've been dead first. (I'm saying that based on the fact that Brown had been aggresive toward the store clerk/owner just moments before, and then aggressively came after Wilson not once, but twice, and attempted to take Wilson's gun off his body while he was trapped in his vehicle. Brown was looking for a fight.) So in fact, t's a good thing Wilson DID have a gun. Do you think he should've just sat there and let Brown take it?
  12. I realize they're trained accordingly... or at least should be. But I also wonder if this comes back to what I had just said in the previous post: I wonder about the differences in the time, intensity, and budget for the training of police officers in a small town vs. a state police agency (where I used to work). I am NOT saying Wilson wasn't properly trained.... I have no idea. It was just a thought. Besides, if a 6' plus, nearly 300-lb man is looming over a man who's inside his vehicle, punching him, has him essentially trapped inside his vehicle, and is trying to grab his gun out of his pocket, at that point the game has changed. Wilson's not out in an open alley where he would have a better opportunity to either subdue, or get away from Brown; he's trapped inside his vehicle and being attacked. From a purely logistical position, Brown had the advantage. Some have questioned why Wilson didn't just stay in his vehicle when Brown finally turned and ran off. I wish he would have, too, and waited for backup. (I believe backup had been called, but hadn't arrived yet, right?) But perhaps he thought it was his duty to give chase 'lest Brown get away, since he'd now committed a felony. Or perhaps it was adrenaline that made him give chase. I don't know.
  13. Big difference in their body size and strength, though. Perhaps that should be added, as well. Every time.
  14. I wonder, too, if location and the size of the police force (and budget) have something to do with it. I don't know where the police of a small town like Ferguson go for training, or how much they have to go through, but I do know that the standards are *very* high in the state police agency where I used to work. Of course, I'd think a state trooper also has greater risks overall in his job than a small town police officer does.
  15. It's something to keep in mind when they choose husbands someday, too (if they marry). Regardless of race, I would hope that my daughters choose husbands who've either had involved, responsible fathers who raised them well, or if they didn't, were doing everything in their power to learn how to become better husbands and fathers than theirs were.
  16. I was just scrolling back through this thread now that I have that I have time to sit down and read more carefully (vs. reading hit-or-miss posts as I was doing when in a hurry). I do apologize for using the phrase "the black community" in the context where I said it. This is what I had said: "One would think that the black community, in Ferguson and elsewhere, would want to prove that they are NOT violent and deserving of abuse. Instead, the rioters are just showing out of control they are. Anger doesn't justify anything. If a man (any man) treats his wife the way the rioters are treating those in the town of Ferguson, everyone would be demanding his head." You are absolutely right, Slojo, re: the bolded. When I made the statement, I really and truly was referring to those individuals involved in the rioting. My bad on the wording. (I think someone else had called me out on the wording, too, but her tone was quite different than yours, as it felt more like "badgering" than "discussing". I appreciate your comments to me, Slojo.) Likewise, I am neither "woefully uneducated, willfully ignorant, or worse," as another poster accused. I just simply used the wrong wording in my statement. I should've been more specific.
  17. Are you calling me a racist, Mrs. Mungo? Because I believe the forensic evidence in this case, you're saying I'm a racist? Is that true? You've already called me "freaking rude and offensive" because you disagree with my opinions (as if you haven't been some of that yourself), but now you're calling me a racist, as well?
  18. Exactly. This pretty much sums up everything I (and many others) have said throughout this entire thread. I believe that the people who keep asking us continuing probing questions in an attempt to nail us on something (feels like "badgering") know very well that we mean. They just don't like it, and I'm not going to spend my time responding to badgering. They don't actually want an "open" conversation; they want a consensus which goes their way. Happens all the time in liberal media, which is how this whole mess got started. 'Nuff said.
  19. I didn't say there was anything specifically in this thread about creation and science belief systems. I was speaking generally from having a been a member of this forum for many years, and the differences in belief systems; specifically, how one group believes by faith that what the Bible says is true, and we also believe the science that corroborates that testimony. But the other group believes (by faith? choice?) that what a group of so-called witnesses says about the Wilson-Brown incident (even though many of those testimonies conflict with one another, and even sometimes with themselves), but then don't want to defer to the science that doesn't corroborates certain of those testimonies. They just keep repeating the false testimonies that the media has been propagating for three months now.... despite the scientific evidence. It's actually not even just this forum... Perhaps I'm narrowing it down too much by saying that, thus making it sound like I'm pointing fingers at certain individuals. I'm not, and I apologize for that. Really, I mean my comments about the belief systems very generally because I see the same thing happening both within this thread, and everywhere else. And I refer to the witnesses in the above paragraph as "so-called" only because there ARE so many conflicting testimonies..... Surely not everyone who claims to have witnessed the event, did. Either that, or an awful lot of them are lying about what they saw, literally making it up as they go along, to the point that some of them can't even keep their own stories straight. Yet, the media (and many individual people both on this forum and elsewhere) have continued to repeat those many conflicting testimonies. Which is why I come back to who or what each of us is choosing to believe in this case: multiple conflicting testimonies and hearsay, or scientific evidence?
  20. Yeah, I already knew you don't believe anything the officer said You've made that abundantly clear in this thread. ;)
  21. "Drugs" in general. I wasn't being specific. That was what I heard announced immediately after autopsy results were announced some time ago, well before the Grand Jury's decision on Monday. The fact that marijuana is legal in some states doesn't make it any less true that it has an affect on the user's body. We also don't know how much marijuana he'd been consuming. But thank you for mentioning the legality issue, because it sort of confirms what I suspected about the reason no one's talking about the Brown's drug usage. It should in fact be part of the conversation, because it does affect one's behavior and thought processes -- including Michael Brown's.
  22. The drugs in his system -- everyone knows that many drugs can, and do, affect a person's behavior and thought processes. That's why they're illegal. But perhaps no one wants to have a conversation about that because there are several states (and groups) trying to get some drugs legalized. Pointing to the drug's in Brown's body as at least ONE factor in his behavior on that fateful day would conflict with that agenda. Forensics in this case also verify Wilson's testimony as to what happened when. There was more to it than just his head being down. Distance, the angle of the gun, the bruises on Wilson's face, etc. These forensic facts back up the officer's story. There is also the video of Brown's behavior toward the clerk (or was it a customer?) inside the store. ALL of those things combined show Brown's aggressive behavior throughout the entire ordeal. Posted Today, 09:21 AM No, it was not directed specifically at Usami. It was directed at anyone in this thread who has repeatedly insisted on believing (and repeating) the multiple, conflicting testimonies over the forensic evidence.
  23. I didn't see that you had already shared it this morning, and therefore posted it again. Sorry about that!
  24. You don't think that's a problem? What's revolting is not that Voddie stated the truth about the fact that so many black men (and white... yes, he preaches the same thing to EVERYONE), but that so many fathers neglect their duty to raise their sons, or to educate themselves to do better. In this day and age of information and available FREE resources, there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for men -- ANY man -- not to take the steps to try and figure out how to be a good father and teach their sons NOT to rob convenience stores and attack people. At.All.
  25. Because forensics are more reliable than multiple, conflicting witness statements. What I want to know is, why is no one talking about the fact that there were illegal drugs in Brown's body, and the fact that many drugs will cause people to become aggressive, especially when the person taking them has just committed a crime, and also physically attacked another person just before the incident with the police officer? Why is nobody talking about THAT? How come all of those who think Wilson ought to be hung aren't talking about what BROWN did, and what forensics show? How is it that multiple, conflicting stories about what witnesses *supposedly* saw (because we know everyone is honest, right?) carry more weight than the scientific evidence? Pretty ironic coming from people who think that science -- even if it's still just in the theory stage -- trumps the belief of some that the literal Genesis account of Creation is true. :confused1:
×
×
  • Create New...